The Cal Basketball Hiring Process and the Imperative for NIL $$

It’s our understanding that Cal will announce Mark Madsen as its next Head Basketball Coach as soon as Utah Valley’s season concludes.   He’s a young, dynamic coach with the energy and passion required to help turn the Bears basketball program around.    However, he will come to Cal under a cloud not of his making around the hiring process that eventually led to his being offered the job.  He will also face the daunting task of having to immediately raise the significant NIL $$ needed to rebuild the roster.

As we laid out on Sunday in this article, Jim Knowlton took a different approach to finding a head coach than the one he utilized back in 2019 which resulted in Mark Fox being hired.  To summarize:

(1) - He held listening conversations with existing and new potential donors, former players and coaches, Cal’s NBA alumni/experts as well as AAU, HS, and Int’l coaches and recruiting services.   He solicited feedback from a broad group of people.

(2)  - According to sources, he has meaningfully increased the size of the budget for Men’s Basketball which would allow Cal to attract and retain a top-tier staff, and give the program the support services (Nutrition, Travel, Recruiting) needed to aid the Bears as they pursue becoming a top 25 program

(3) - The foundation was laid for a Caliber fund for Basketball and soft pledges were made to that fund and to NIL from donors

All of the above are encouraging and laid the foundation for a positive and successful search process.  

In the end, how the process unfolded and the decisions made, including whom to offer were driven as per the role of the Athletic Director, by Jim Knowlton.

This included laying out to candidates that Cal had a significant pledge for NIL and multiple groups of donors who were ready to add to that amount.   This of course is proving problematic as those pledges were made either explicitly for a particular candidate or were contingent on a process being run that would be inclusive and objective with the sole goal of finding the best possible candidate for the job.  More on that below as we touch on the NIL $$ gap that now exists.

It also resulted in one particular individual having an outsized influence on the process, that being former Cal and Hall of Fame coach, Mike Montgomery.   Montgomery’s resume and his basketball expertise speak for themselves.   He’s incredibly well respected for what he accomplished at Stanford and in six years in Berkeley.   He is, however, a former coach.  And anyone who has spent time with college football and basketball coaches knows that the one trait that almost all of them have in common is their unwavering loyalty to their former players, assistant coaches and their families who may still be in the profession.

Of all the folks with whom Knowlton significantly consulted in the process, the only group that is not tied to money being raised for NIL and for the nascent Caliber fund is the former coaches.  It’s also worth noting that Montgomery was never known as a top-flight recruiter (perhaps Cal’s most important prerequisite in its new coach) nor was he a coach during the era of the transfer portal and NIL.   Thus, the most influential individual in the decision on who would be Cal’s head coach has no ability to impact fundraising, almost certainly has his loyalty to a former player at the top of his goals and is not an expert in the two most critical elements of being a head coach in 2023 - Raising money and recruiting.

The result is that Randy Bennett became a favorite.   He’s similar to Montgomery in his outsized success as a winning college coach and his approach to recruiting and the newest aspects of college basketball at a Power 5 school.    The next impact of Coach Montgomery’s involvement was that a narrative was created that Joe Pasternack did not have the right personality profile for the Cal job.   Pasternack was a fierce competitor of Montgomery’s while at both Cal and Arizona winning numerous recruiting battles and games against Stanford and Cal during Montgomery’s tenure as their head coach.  It seems likely that those battles left some hard feelings that undoubtedly shaded Montgomery's views on Pasternack.  

In the end, the coach who emerged as Knowlton’s choice was Montgomery’s likely hand-picked candidate, Mark Madsen.   Make no mistake, Madsen was a worthy candidate and has the potential to be an outstanding coach at Cal.   However, was he objectively the best possible candidate?    And was he worth the cost of breaking the intended inclusive process and one that prioritized donor support and the reality of the need for NIL money?   It’s unlikely.

Madsen comes to Berkeley ready to roll.  He’s well plugged into the portal and has started to build a staff that could be world-class.  The addition of John Montgomery is still TBD and despite whatever strengths he has as a coach would further underline that Cal and Knowlton ran a process that was not run free from personal agendas and goals.   The overriding priority now becomes recruiting and in today's world, that starts and ends with NIL.

The major NIL pledge he assumed he inherited is in significant jeopardy.  If those donors do recommit it will likely be in lower amounts and paid over time.   Money has to be raised quickly before players with an interest in Madsen and Cal go elsewhere.   And this has to happen with the backdrop of an unpopular Athletic Director whose under investigation and a process that has left what was a multi-million dollar consortium of donors feeling angry and disenfranchised.   

That’s on Cal and its Athletic Department.   It’s not on Mark Madsen.   We as Cal fans and donors now have to decide how we can make clear our displeasure with the leadership of the Athletic Department and its ongoing approach to taking donor and fan dollars while solving for things not related to the intentions those fans and donors believed they were contributing to with their dollars.  And simultaneously embrace and support Mark Madsen and find the dollars needed to support his rebuild of Cal Basketball.

As a member of the Board of Directors of Cal’s Legends Collective, I hope that anyone who can make a significant donation reaches out to me in the near future if they want to make a material and immediate impact on the Bears basketball program.   I further hope that all of us do all that we can with our voices if not our dollars to create enduring change in how Cal approaches athletics and its relationship with its fans and donors.