[washingtonismoney]

[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=14628.msg156983#msg156983 date=1456172082]
[quote author=76lsjumb link=topic=14628.msg156981#msg156981 date=1456170669]
Are there more talented head coaches out there than Dawkins?  Of course there are.  Would one of them want to come to Stanford?  Who knows?  If they do, though, it won't be because of the supportive fan base...

You've got to be kidding me. What coach is going to shy away because fans are uninterested in a one-in-seven NCAA appearance record? Only a terminally frightened coach, really. A coach of any ambition realizes that Stanford fan demands are far less, and far more forgiving, than virtually any major job.
[/quote]

I'm sorry.  I meant to say "more talented head coach..."  Oh, wait a minute, that's what I did say.  Because the type of coach I think you are describing is going to meet the same fate as Dawkins -- that is, fans who aren't going to show up and are going to be calling for his head -- much more quickly than even Dawkins did if he doesn't get to the tournament pretty much right away.

Remember, Dawkins was a brand new head coach when he started at Stanford and people think he's lousy because, in his 8th year, he's not as good as a 30-year HoF women's coach and a 30+-year [should be] HoF men's coach [who also coached in the NBA].  Indeed, beginning NEXT year, Dawkins will have the same amount of head coaching experience that Monty had when he coached his FIRST game at Stanford.
[/quote]

1. It's possible, but who knows. At any rate, coaches have egos. They will think they can do better than Dawkins -- which is not unreasonable, since Dawkins is average at the most charitable. And they will know that fans everywhere are fickle. If they have aspirations of competing for championships or coaching at places like Kentucky or UCLA or the New York Knicks, they will know that Stanford fans are kittens compared to the jungle cats. They will not care. This is a ridiculous idea.

2. Experience is nice, I suppose, but it's silly to use experience on its own as a qualification. We value experience because of what it imparts -- judgment, wisdom, skill. But experience doesn't have a uniform effect. There are plenty of dumb codgers and brilliant youth out there. Your example only proves this point all the better: Dawkins has gotten, at best, minimally better with age. That's nice.

And what your straw-manning approach steadfastly ignores is that there are many intermediate stops between "what Dawkins has done" and a "David Shaw, Mark Marquess or Tara Vanderveer" standard. A prospective head coach could go to the NCAAs half the time and be a vast improvement over Dawkins; I wouldn't complain too loudly, if at all.

What's most bizarre is that most people would use a strong track record of success as a reason to aspire to more. You're using it to despair. Most people would look at this record and think, "if we can do it in men's basketball, football, women's basketball [speech redacted for brevity]... then why the hell can't we do it in men's basketball now?" You've never tried to answer it, which is why your argument makes so little sense. 

[washingtonismoney]

[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=14628.msg156983#msg156983 date=1456172082]
[quote author=76lsjumb link=topic=14628.msg156981#msg156981 date=1456170669]
Are there more talented head coaches out there than Dawkins?  Of course there are.  Would one of them want to come to Stanford?  Who knows?  If they do, though, it won't be because of the supportive fan base...

You've got to be kidding me. What coach is going to shy away because fans are uninterested in a one-in-seven NCAA appearance record? Only a terminally frightened coach, really. A coach of any ambition realizes that Stanford fan demands are far less, and far more forgiving, than virtually any major job.
[/quote]

I'm sorry.  I meant to say "more talented head coach..."  Oh, wait a minute, that's what I did say.  Because the type of coach I think you are describing is going to meet the same fate as Dawkins -- that is, fans who aren't going to show up and are going to be calling for his head -- much more quickly than even Dawkins did if he doesn't get to the tournament pretty much right away.

Remember, Dawkins was a brand new head coach when he started at Stanford and people think he's lousy because, in his 8th year, he's not as good as a 30-year HoF women's coach and a 30+-year [should be] HoF men's coach [who also coached in the NBA].  Indeed, beginning NEXT year, Dawkins will have the same amount of head coaching experience that Monty had when he coached his FIRST game at Stanford.
[/quote]

1. It's possible, but who knows. At any rate, coaches have egos. They will think they can do better than Dawkins -- which is not unreasonable, since Dawkins is average at the most charitable. And they will know that fans everywhere are fickle. If they have aspirations of competing for championships or coaching at places like Kentucky or UCLA or the New York Knicks, they will know that Stanford fans are kittens compared to the jungle cats. They will not care. This is a ridiculous idea.

2. Experience is nice, I suppose, but it's silly to use experience on its own as a qualification. We value experience because of what it imparts -- judgment, wisdom, skill. But experience doesn't have a uniform effect. There are plenty of dumb codgers and brilliant youth out there. Your example only proves this point all the better: Dawkins has gotten, at best, minimally better with age. That's nice.

And what your straw-manning approach steadfastly ignores is that there are many intermediate stops between "what Dawkins has done" and a "David Shaw, Mark Marquess or Tara Vanderveer" standard. A prospective head coach could go to the NCAAs half the time and be a vast improvement over Dawkins; I wouldn't complain too loudly, if at all.

What's most bizarre is that most people would use a strong track record of success as a reason to aspire to more. You're using it to despair. Most people would look at this record and think, "if we can do it in men's basketball, football, women's basketball [speech redacted for brevity]... then why the hell can't we do it in men's basketball now?" You've never tried to answer it, which is why your argument makes so little sense.