The University of Oregon sports culture is at a crossroads. With two large vacancies in the athletic department, the hiring of a new basketball coach and athletic director are tantamount to the future of Oregon athletics.
If Oregon wants to continue to make a name for itself as a top-tier athletics school, it must hire a top-tier coach for its second-biggest money maker.
Ernie Kent set the foundation for what could be a meteoric rise by the basketball team by taking the team to two Elite Eights, and making sure he graduated players. However, the athletic department made it clear that he wouldn’t — and couldn’t — take the program to the next level.
This means Oregon cannot settle for a basketball coach who will continue the string of OK seasons mixed in with mediocre to crappy seasons. The University must look to pay top dollar, and reach for the stars — much like it did in hiring George Horton for the baseball team. Names attract talent; talent attracts fans; fans mean money.
This is especially true for Oregon’s current situation with the basketball team. Fans are snakebit by the team’s failures. My freshman year, basketball tickets were hard to come by. Mac Court was sold out every night. But this season I looked around and saw a lot of empty seats, and it made me a little bit sad to see. With an arena being built that has almost 3,000 more seats, getting a coach with the name recognition to fill those seats is crucial.
However, this doesn’t mean Oregon should go after everyone in the country willy-nilly. Recent rumors about Michigan State coach Tom Izzo being looked at for the Oregon job are just completely absurd. Izzo himself said on the Dan Patrick Radio Show on Wednesday that he’s never leaving Michigan State unless they fire him — which would be the biggest shocker ever in college basketball. That man has taken them to six Final Fours in 12 years.
There’s a fine line between conducting a thorough search for a coach or coming off as desperate. I’d prefer to see a quiet, efficient search, without all the leaks. I’m personally tired of hearing speculation from different Internet sites that cover the University writing they have “sources” saying, this, or this, or blah, blah, blah. Going to the Internet with something before you have looked all the way into it just perpetuates the problem.
Getting back to who Oregon needs, I have no doubt in my mind it will be a marquee name, and whoever it is will probably shock me to a degree. However, for those of you out there hoping for Izzo, you have a better chance of seeing Jeremiah Masoli playing football in 2010 than Izzo coming to Eugene, and we all know that’s not going to happen either. 
As for the athletic director position, someone with a solid business background is a must. It’s already clear a person just removed from coaching is not the ideal fit, even if he is the school’s all-time winningest football coach. The University needs a business person who takes risks, who thinks progressively, who is ambitious, and who — most importantly — is used to dealing with a budget the size of Oregon’s.
The money issue is crucial to Oregon’s long-term success, because the athletic department lost money last year, according to an Oregonian report. The single most important characteristic of the most successful sports schools in the country like Ohio State, Florida, Penn State, etc., is that they all turn a profit on sports. Just a couple of years ago Oregon was a school breaking even and on the verge of becoming über successful. The economic downturn and building a couple of new sports structures hasn’t helped things, but if Oregon wants to make it to the next level like it says it does, the new athletic director will play a crucial part in its goals.
Oregon has made a point of hiring marquee coaches all across the board to fill vacancies. Horton and women’s basketball coach Paul Westhead are two prime examples. Even the hiring of Mike White as the softball coach was a big hire.
These choices have led to some great success in Oregon athletics, and I hope to see it going for many years to come. The men’s golf team is No. 1 in the country, the softball team is ranked, and the baseball team is finally hitting its stride.
Let’s hope that the next month or two brings more good news that can give us all hope for a bright future of Oregon sports.
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