Question about Richard Williams and MSU

[birdawg]

Reading Rick Cleveland's article about Ray Allen and D. Wilson made me think about this.

Why is it that Richard Williams doesnt get the love that Sherrill gets from MSU? I feel like if Jackie is the Kang of football at State then Williams would be the equivalent in basketball.

The departure for each coach wasnt exactly pretty either, but Sherrill got back in our good graces. Why hasnt Williams? Is there still a relationship issue with university leaders or board members?

Just curious. And yes I do know the rumors that went around amid his departure but I've always questioned the validity. I wont say who but my college boss was great friends with Richard and when he left he came to where I worked and went in the back and talked to my boss and was quite emotional. My boss told me afterwords Richard told him he didnt do anything near what he'd been accused of and he believed him 100%.

Thoughts?

 

[dawgstudent]

A few reasons:

Partly because we didn't completely flop and dare I say had more success under his successor(Stansbury) than Williams did.
Our basketball history isn't as putrid as our football history

 

[birdawg]

You had me at putrid*

 

[Dawgbreeze]

What would you expect him to say? Clinton said he didn't have sexual relations with Ms Lewinsky either. I find it interesting that folks want to make richard a martyr but he had a losing recoerd in his career at MSU in the SEC. Yes, he had a couple of good years but if he was so great, why was he not able to land another Division 1 job? The baggage outweighed the few pluses and it was a known fact he could not recruit. MSU took the high road and let him go without much fanfare but believe me, unless you are like Obama, when there is smoke, there is usually fire.

Reading Rick Cleveland's article about Ray Allen and D. Wilson made me think about this.

Why is it that Richard Williams doesnt get the love that Sherrill gets from MSU? I feel like if Jackie is the Kang of football at State then Williams would be the equivalent in basketball.

The departure for each coach wasnt exactly pretty either, but Sherrill got back in our good graces. Why hasnt Williams? Is there still a relationship issue with university leaders or board members?

Just curious. And yes I do know the rumors that went around amid his departure but I've always questioned the validity. I wont say who but my college boss was great friends with Richard and when he left he came to where I worked and went in the back and talked to my boss and was quite emotional. My boss told me afterwords Richard told him he didnt do anything near what he'd been accused of and he believed him 100%.

Thoughts?

 

[KurtRambis4]

Jeez, gramps.

Your love affair for Stans is borderline crazy. Get over it. You can be a fan of Stansbury AND Williams. They aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[birdawg]

So, a US president lying on national tv = Richard Williams privately sobbing to

my boss? And yes I agree, where there's smoke there's usually fire, just not in the way you think.

There's a whole other side to the story.

 

[Original48]

Yes, he had a couple of good years but if he was so great, why was he not able to land another Division 1 job? MSU took the high road and let him go without much fanfare but believe me, unless you are like Obama, when there is smoke, there is usually fire.

Yeah you betcha!! And where there was smoke, there was your boy striking matches and fanning the flames. And also, where is Stansbury coaching right now again?

 

[patdog]

I don't really buy either of those reasons. Other than a 6 year run before any of us were born, our basketball history when Williams got there was probably even worse than our football history. And I fail to see how not letting the program completely implode (and leaving us on probation) gets you less retrospective love. I think it has more to do with the extremely low profile Williams has kept since he left. I definitely appreciate what both Williams and Sherrill did for MSU and they are both good Bulldogs who have remained loyal since they left.

 

[dawgstudent]

So you don't think part of Sherrill's lore wasn't because Croom sucked so bad? We longed for being 7-4 again during the Croom years.

 

[dawgstudent]

Upward Basketball. He came in second for Coach of the Year.

 

[esplanade91]

Reading Rick Cleveland's article about Ray Allen and D. Wilson made me think about this.

Why is it that Richard Williams doesnt get the love that Sherrill gets from MSU? I feel like if Jackie is the Kang of football at State then Williams would be the equivalent in basketball.

The departure for each coach wasnt exactly pretty either, but Sherrill got back in our good graces. Why hasnt Williams? Is there still a relationship issue with university leaders or board members?

Just curious. And yes I do know the rumors that went around amid his departure but I've always questioned the validity. I wont say who but my college boss was great friends with Richard and when he left he came to where I worked and went in the back and talked to my boss and was quite emotional. My boss told me afterwords Richard told him he didnt do anything near what he'd been accused of and he believed him 100%.

Thoughts?

There was a time where Jackie was a hated man among the MSU faithful. It took having a coach who somehow was just as bad as Jackie's bad days, time, and an athletic director who had nothing to do with MSU coming in and realizing he had some marketability as "MSU's savior".

That's football though.

Basketball is a 2nd tier sport even though our football history pales in comparison to our basketball history. Even though Williams took us to an all-time high by taking us to the Final Four, he's not even close to being the greatest coach in school history. Many believe we would have been to the Final Four several times had we been allowed in the 50's and 60's and maybe even have won the thing.

It didn't help that his successor passed him in all-time wins and became the face of the franchise quite quickly. If you went to a game this season you would have seen Williams in the front row of E-V-E-R-Y S-I-N-G-L-E game. Almost half of the games I went to they put him on the jumbotron and said "RICHARD WILLIAMS IS IN ATTENDANCE. COACH WILLIAMS COACHED MSU BLAH BLAH BLAH". When they did the reunion game he got a standing ovation from the crowd.

They're two different animals. Sherrill is the greatest thing that could have happened to MSU's football program and because of that will always be one of the most popular figures on campus... not only from his success on the field but because he was a huge ashhole towards Ole Miss and anyone (media, Nike, anyone) who crossed us.

He was involved on campus and embraced students and faculty. I think his wife got a degree here while he was coaching. He donated a lot of his salary to stuff like the library and then left us a [creepy] museum.

Williams had some not so great years and then out of nowhere took us to the Final Four (albeit his not so great years were because of not so great of players, but some damn fine coaching). I'd say the average fan doesn't even know about the cheerleader scandal, but I'd say the casual fan knows that the only real NBA talent MSU has had since Malone was on that team. They associate Dampier with that team, not the coach. There wasn't a dip-off in winning when Williams was released which really hurt him being distinguished from anyone else. I'll go even further to say that I bet most MSU fans don't even separate the 96 Final Four from the Stansbury era. A girl I'm friends with who works for the basketball team tried telling me that Stansbury did it.

I'm thankful for Williams because he is in fact THE guy who relit a fire under MSU's *** to have a successful basketball program. I wouldn't call us average fans though.

 

[patdog]

Actually, we did go 7-4 in one of Crxxm's years. And he left us in better shape then Sherrill did. Not to mention that the reason we even had to hire Crxxm in the first place was because of the probation we were facing to try to placate the NCAA/SEC to give us a slight break on the penalties.

 

[MadDawg.sixpack]

Nothing unites the Pack quite like a post from Dawgbreeze.

Hell, if you'd make another post like this, they might start sending their daughter's contact info straight to Tricky Dick.

 

[dawgstudent]

Sherrill was 67-48-2. He left us in decent shape.

And pat, stop being so literal. One season of Croom and 7-4 doesn't mean anything when you didn't break 4 wins in your other 4 seasons.

 

[MadDawg.sixpack]

He deserved coach of the year. But the other coaches were jealous because he got a stud transfer from First Presbyterain.

 

[birdawg]

You make some very valid points. Let me try this angle... This is just my opinion, while Jackie was able to take us to ATL and have some success at lowly MSU, I feel like his rise to Kang status happened as a result of Greg Byrne recognizing MSU fans needed to be reminded that success was possible in Starkville and linked the hiring of Dan Mullen to Jackie's success. A brilliant move by the way.

I was thinking the reason for Williams not receiving the same treatment is because we didnt really need to rally around Stans bc he did pretty well on his own. Now if Ray sucks for a few years then maybe we'll resurrect one of these guys and link with a new hire. Again, just a different perception.

 

[patdog]

Sorry ds, but your delusion doesn't change the fact that Sherrill left us with about as big of a dumpster fire as Stansbury did. A little more talent, but a lot of pieces of **** character wise. And oh yeah, a probation too. And you can't deny the fact that Crxxm left us in a hell of a lot better shape than either of them did.

 

[MedDawg]

Sherrill was 67-48-2. He left us in decent shape.

And pat, stop being so literal. One season of Croom and 7-4 doesn't mean anything when you didn't break 4 wins in your other 4 seasons.

Sherrill was 75-75-2. Still, he did leave Croom a bunch of talent. Thing was, Croom kicked a lot of that talent off the team right from the start. I still don't know if all of those players really needed to be kicked off. A couple were obviously bad seeds, but I remember others being kicked off for being late to meetings, etc. It's not like Croom didn't have a lot of his own players arrested later.

 

[Philly Dawg]

Williams deserves some credit because of how horrid our program had been for decades when he took it over, but at the same time, he did not have a sufficient amount of success to have any sort of veneration. We had some very high points, but were bad in almost every other year. (Its interesting that many of our fans have the perception that our basketball program has had much historical success. We had a good run under Babe McCarthy, but our all time winning percentages in SEC play only ranks ahead of perennial doormats such as Ole Miss, even including Stansbury's solid 14 year run.)

I'm not sure I agree that Jackie is especially venerated at MSU either. He also had some high points, but the low points and probation but a huge asterisk beside them.

Both were good coaches that did some great things at MSU, but also had some blemishes on their records. Personally, I think that is how most MSU fans view them.

 

[patdog]

Actually, Sherrill was 74-76-2. I don't recall any players being kicked off for things like being late for team meetings. Crxxm did have his own share of discipline problems too but nothing even close to like the last years of the Sherrill and Stansbury eras.

 

[BiscuitEater]

Whoa ...

Yeah you betcha!! And where there was smoke, there was your boy striking matches and fanning the flames. And also, where is Stansbury coaching right now again?

So, please explain what Stans did to get Williams fired at State. How did he fan any flames? Did he set up Richard with the cheerleader?

I was a Babe fan, a Williams fan ... and a Stans fan. Richard Williams gave credit to Stans for recruiting the '96 team.

 

[Hdc]

To fully appreciate what Williams did for the program, you had to have suffered through 5 years of Bob Boyd (with one of the worst coaching records in MSU BB history).

 

[KurtRambis4]

Surely

he didn't mean to suggest this. That'd be a new low in the ultra-right-wing Stans basher club, if so.

 

[johnson86-1]

The teams Sherril left and Crooms left were different, but Crooms didn't leave MSU in any better position. Just depends on whether you want to deal with attitude problems or major holes in talent. I will say Crooms left us some great playmakers, it's just when he didn't get a playmaker, he was often left with talent that was definitely not major football conference talent, and maybe not even D-1 talent.

 

[Dog316]

There was a time where Jackie was a hated man among the MSU faithful. It took having a coach who somehow was just as bad as Jackie's bad days, time, and an athletic director who had nothing to do with MSU coming in and realizing he had some marketability as "MSU's savior".

Jackie was never hated by the MSU faithful. He was hated by the MSU ungrateful. Never been such a proud time for MSU football. Many fans are just plain hateful . . . Period.

 

[patdog]

That was hilarious, ds. Well done.

 

[dawgstudent]

I'm not really arguing that point. My point is that part of Sherrill's love by the MSU fanbase is because Croom sucked so bad. It wasn't fun to be a MSU football fan except for 2007 and some would even argue 2007 wasn't that fun. It made people want Sherrill's good years back. So much so, that the record books have cut off 2001-2003 from his record.

67-48-2!!!!

 

[MSUDawg25]

Sorry ds, but your delusion doesn't change the fact that Sherrill left us with about as big of a dumpster fire as Stansbury did. A little more talent, but a lot of pieces of **** character wise. And oh yeah, a probation too. And you can't deny the fact that Crxxm left us in a hell of a lot better shape than either of them did.

I hate this argument that because someone "left us in good shape" they had any 17n clue what they were doing. If I ran a construction site and all I did was order a bunch of lumber and run around banging on it with a hammer like a drunken six year old, that doesn't mean the next guy should come in, look at all the lumber and say "that last guy left me in really good shape. We should all thank him."

Having some of the pieces and making absolutely nothing out of them speaks more to your ineptitude than anything else. This is not solely a shot at crooms. I hate that argument when it comes to all coaching discussions.

 

[birdawg]

Sounds like you already know...

btw, and I know this will sound ridiculous, but I've always been led to believe a certain someone planted the affair, and that fake affair was not with a cheerleader but with someone else, and the cheerleader story was made up to protect the identity of the female in the fake affair. Since I dont believe any affair at all happened, reading this as I type it sounds pretty out there. But...

 

[gtowndawg]

Me too. One of my favorite words.

for real.

 

[BiscuitEater]

Williams ...

Williams had some not so great years and then out of nowhere took us to the Final Four (albeit his not so great years were because of not so great of players, but some damn fine coaching). I'd say the average fan doesn't even know about the cheerleader scandal, but I'd say the casual fan knows that the only real NBA talent MSU has had since Malone was on that team. They associate Dampier with that team, not the coach. There wasn't a dip-off in winning when Williams was released which really hurt him being distinguished from anyone else.

I'll go even further to say that I bet most MSU fans don't even separate the 96 Final Four from the Stansbury era. A girl I'm friends with who works for the basketball team tried telling me that Stansbury did it.

I'm thankful for Williams because he is in fact THE guy who relit a fire under MSU's *** to have a successful basketball program. I wouldn't call us average fans though.

DOES deserve credit for reviving MSU BB. One reason that fans don't separate the final four team is bicause Stans was the recruiter and associate head coach for that team. Williams and Stans made a good team. In fact, Williams did not have a single winning SEC season until Stans came on-board.

 

[maroonmania]

DOES deserve credit for reviving MSU BB. One reason that fans don't separate the final four team is bicause Stans was the recruiter and associate head coach for that team. Williams and Stans made a good team. In fact, Williams did not have a single winning SEC season until Stans came on-board.

I am a big fan of Sherrill and I am a big fan of Williams. To me the 90s were sort of the hayday of being an MSU fan with Bowl Games and the SEC football championship and NCAA tournament runs along with some CWSs thrown in. And its misleading to say Williams didn't have a winning SEC season WITHOUT Stans because Williams only coached a couple of years at MSU before bringing in Stans. Nobody was going to have a winning SEC record the first year or two after what was inherited from Boyd's mess. There is no doubt though that Stans was the one who raised the bar in our basketball recruiting . I do think there is a little more love for Sherrill because Jackie really went out of his way to connect with the fans and MSU people loved that. Williams is just a different personality type who is not very PR and so while fans appreciate what he accomplished and for reviving MSU basketball most MSU fans weren't as connected to Richard Williams the person as they were to Jackie Sherrill the person.

 

[Dawgbreeze]

If you believe that it was planted or made up, then I have swampland I will sell you cheap in Louisiana. And by the way, this has nothing to do with Stansbury, he recruited for tricky Dick just like he did for himself, so forget the balck helicopters. LT was fixing to hire Duane Reboul until Dr. Portera said no but hell no.

Sounds like you already know...

btw, and I know this will sound ridiculous, but I've always been led to believe a certain someone planted the affair, and that fake affair was not with a cheerleader but with someone else, and the cheerleader story was made up to protect the identity of the female in the fake affair. Since I dont believe any affair at all happened, reading this as I type it sounds pretty out there. But...

 

[esplanade91]

Jackie was never hated by the MSU faithful. He was hated by the MSU ungrateful. Never been such a proud time for MSU football. Many fans are just plain hateful . . . Period.

I agree 100%. Unfortunately MSU has a lot of fans who like MSU but are "fans" of Auburn, LSU, etc.

This school owes a lot to Jackie. He was good to MSU before it was cool for coaches to be good to their schools.

I'll say this much though, people "hated" Jackie for the same reasons people "hate" Ron Polk right now. I don't think anyone in their right mind legitimately hates Ron Polk, but I just now stopped cussing him because this is the first year we've had a legitimate roster in 6-7 years. If Sean Payton had left the Saints for Dallas like a lot of people thought I would have boo'd his *** every time he came to the Super Dome and I would talk **** about him, but I would forever be grateful for him and what he for NOLA and south Mississippi by winning a Super Bowl.

Same thing. My point was that following the 2000 season there were some negative things passed around about Jackie, partially his fault and partially not his fault. Just part of the job.

DOES deserve credit for reviving MSU BB. One reason that fans don't separate the final four team is bicause Stans was the recruiter and associate head coach for that team. Williams and Stans made a good team. In fact, Williams did not have a single winning SEC season until Stans came on-board.

Exactly. Stans was the ying to Williams' yang. Richard was a douche who really knew how to coach basketball and Stans was a softy who really know how to make great impressions and kiss up to people. Together they made a killer team. Imagine if Ray added a Stans-type guy to his staff.

 

[Rezpup]

Sherrill got screwed bc he won. Penn state, Texas and ole miss hated getting beat by him.

 

[fishwater99]

If you believe that it was planted or made up, then I have swampland I will sell you cheap in Louisiana. And by the way, this has nothing to do with Stansbury, he recruited for tricky Dick just like he did for himself, so forget the balck helicopters. LT was fixing to hire Duane Reboul until Dr. Portera said no but hell no.

Damn I agree with you old man... Williams liked them young and got caught. Stans could always recuit, that wasn't his problem..

 

[birdawg]

How cheap?

 

[esplanade91]

I hate this argument that because someone "left us in good shape" they had any 17n clue what they were doing. If I ran a construction site and all I did was order a bunch of lumber and run around banging on it with a hammer like a drunken six year old, that doesn't mean the next guy should come in, look at all the lumber and say "that last guy left me in really good shape. We should all thank him."

Having some of the pieces and making absolutely nothing out of them speaks more to your ineptitude than anything else. This is not solely a shot at crooms. I hate that argument when it comes to all coaching discussions.

Yes! Never heard it so delicately put.

He couldn't recruit, he couldn't develop talent, and he didn't teach one single player a single useful skill he went on to be successful with under Mullen. The shining star of Croom's tenure was Dixon... who had to be retaught everything the summer before his senior year.

I had a long talk one night with a guy (***) who played 3 years under Croom and he told me he only came to State because we had an African-American coach. He mentioned he knew he had zero experience with college because that's what the other colleges all told him, but he didn't care because he wanted to get his degree and go into high school coaching and liked Croom on a personal level. Some people read way into Croom grabbing a couple players he had no business in getting. I just don't see how Croom gets a pass by saying "he left us in better shape" when there isn't any way in hell he could have left us in worse shape but on the other end everyone's excuse for not turning the corner the last 4 seasons is "we haven't built enough depth yet"... Can't have both. People need to quit dancing around the elephant in the room and call a spade a spade. I'm sure 99% of coaches in every sport are good people. I think people are reserved about bashing Croom because he is black, which is a shame because he did a horrible job and should get the recognition he deserves despite his race. It's more a slap in the face to him than anything else.

Anyway, it's nothing like the Stans situation. Stans' situation is a lot more like Polk's situation where he left us with a pile of **** and little thought of the future.

Williams' departure was so bizarre I don't think anyone can peg it. Had the internet or social media been around he would have had a lot more credit and a lot more negative publicity for his departure and you would have seen a bigger welcome when Stans left because the average joe would know who the hell he is. Current students remember Jackie from their childhood. I just graduated and I was 5 when we went to the Final Four. I grew up with Stans as coach and was too young to remember Williams. I was in middle school when Jackie retired.