ATLANTA — In the past five and a half months, Georgia Tech has fired the athletic director, fired its football coach, hired an athletic director, elevated the interim football coach to the permanent job, fired the men’s basketball coach and hired his replacement. The school’s NIL collective is called, “The Tech Way,” but I’m going to assume this level of change and relative instability is nowhere to be found in the mission statement.
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We can’t really know where any of this is going, in terms of success and failure. But this much seems certain: J Batt, the newish man on campus, has his own agenda. He wanted his own people and made it evident from the day he arrived as athletic director that this is his show.
The tenure of a major college athletic director is generally defined by two things, and in this order: 1) Who he hires as football coach; 2) Who he hires as basketball coach. Some will attempt to cloud things with other important aspects of the position, like fundraising and facilities, and those would not be inaccurate. But there is ample evidence that if the coaches of the top two revenue sports succeed at a high level, increased revenue and facility improvements follow. If you need a reference point, drive east to Athens.
Batt promoted Brent Key to football coach in late November after a search that included a few hiccups. He hired Damon Stoudamire as men’s basketball coach Monday, just a few days after firing Josh Pastner. So in a span of three and a half months, the two legs that support his throne were nailed in place.
Todd Stansbury, Batt’s predecessor, was a likable guy who had a vision for fundraising initiatives and secured enough pledges from donors for a long overdue renovation and expansion of the athletics complex. But his undoing was he hired a really bad football coach in Geoff Collins and compounded the mistake by giving him an absurd contract (seven years). So he lost his job.
One … bad … hire.
Batt hasn’t done a lot of media since being hired in October, though in his defense he’s been busy. So Tuesday, at Stoudamire’s introductory press conference, I asked him if it occurred to him that his success and failure might be defined by these two major hires.
“No,” he responded. “At the end of the day, the people we surround ourselves with are some of the most important parts of our work, and I can tell you I have extreme confidence in both of the hires we’ve made in my short time here, and I feel really great about our future.”
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On what the past few months have been like: “It’s certainly been busy. I found the coffee (machine). Despite being super busy, I’m even more excited about our future.” (I would’ve liked to ask him a few more questions but the press conference apparently had a hard stop at 35 minutes, including introductions, and Batt left immediately afterward because he had to attend another event, a spokesman said.)
Where Tech basketball and football go from here will be interesting to watch, and not just from the standpoint of whether Stoudamire and Key prove to be good choices. The Institute historically has been behind the curve among Power 5 conference schools in resources, staffing, and, most recently, NIL funding. The great contradiction about the school is that while it produces more than its share of wealthy graduates and C-suite executives in corporate America, only a relatively small percentage give to athletics. Conversely, athletic donations dominate at places like Alabama.
Stoudamire clearly has a different impression of the place. He left his assistant coaching job with the Boston Celtics — even before what might become a deep playoff run — at least in part because he believes he’ll be given everything he needs to win at Tech. Mind you, this is somebody who left the only head coaching job of his career at Pacific in 2021 because he was frustrated the school wouldn’t spend what his two toughest West Coast Conference opponents, Gonzaga and St. Mary’s, spent on hoops.
Stoudamire choked up at the outset of Tuesday’s introductory news conference. When I asked him after the press conference why, he said, “It hit me because I feel I have a real opportunity to win here. I choked up the last couple of days just thinking about it. They treated me well (at Pacific) but after a while it’s, like, you against you. You know you’re going to get the same result and not do anything about it.”
He inherited a program under NCAA sanctions and had three straight losing seasons before going 23-10 in 2019-20, then slipped back to 9-9 in the Covid-19 season, then left. Many around the Jackets’ program are excited about his arrival, including some players of the program’s past who were in attendance Tuesday: Dennis Scott, Malcolm Mackey, and James Forrest.
The Buzz is Back On The Flats! 🐝 pic.twitter.com/nzhuwfmm9U
— Dennis 3D Scott (@Dennis3DScott) March 14, 2023
He hit all the right talking points. He recalled names of the Jackets’ glorious distant past. He said he aspires to win championships. He said he will be able to recruit Georgia in general and Atlanta in particular, a failure of past regimes. Southwest DeKalb’s Shaquille Goodwin was the first player he ever recruited (to Memphis).
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“I’m dialed in and in tune to what it takes to be successful,” he said. “This is a major hub and I don’t think it’s been tapped into the way it can be tapped into.”
Somebody brought up NIL. Stoudamire, an All-American player at Arizona and then NBA rookie of the year, acknowledges the college athletics landscape has changed but said, “You could see it (coming) years ago.”
And then: “It’s kind of taboo in collegiate sports, but from the world I come from it’s almost like playing with a salary cap. Just being honest with you.”
At which point I’m pretty sure any athletic board members in attendance probably passed out. This is the new world, Georgia Tech. Success in basketball and football spins off dollars and coaches. Now J Batt can only hope he chose well.
(Photo of Georgia Tech president Angel Cabrera, Damon Stoudamire and J Batt: Jeff Schultz / The Athletic)