socaltownie said:

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Just to remind people that it CAN GET BETTER I would like to point out that the anteaters are, after this weekend, now 21-5. Up in Mizzula, Travis has the Grizzlies at 17-6. Both are leading their respective conferences......that is how AWFUL Williams butchered this hire.

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Does anyone know if those coaches are still interested in taking the Cal job?

Go Bears!

SFCityBear said:

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What are you going to do if by some miracle, Wyking Jones stays, and the team gets much better? It's a hypothetical, but would you be then willing to admit the fan might have been right to give Wyking a chance?

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Yes I would admit that I was wrong.

Of course, since we're indulging in hypotheticals, I choose some that have a better chance of happening:

- I win both the Lotto & SuperLotto in the same week, in fact, before the Summer is out.

- Cal football wins the 2020 National Championship Game. Beau Baldwin is hailed as an offensive genious.

- Before I win the Lotto's, I am asked out on a date by Jessica Alba, who wants to leave her husband to be with me. She says that our difference in age makes me "unbelievably attractive."

- Everyone on BI who in the past has disagreed with me, each posts a letter of apology, begging for my forgiveness.

By all accounts, WJ is a good guy. He's just way, way, way in over his head. I do fault him for taking the job, since he should have known he had no chance to do it anywhere close to even mediocre. Just sayin.

SFCityBear said:

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Yogi Bear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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UrsaMajor said:

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hanky1 said:

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I think everyone who criticized calbear80 owes him an apology.

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Not true, Hanky. Many who criticize calbear80 do owe him an apology, but many of the criticisms are not because people disagree, but because he refused for a long time to use the coach's name (which seemed petty) and because he posted the same thing over and over again.

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I will criticize calbear80, and will continue to do so, because his contempt and near-hatred for one man, our coach, has made this season much more unenjoyable than it already was.

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If the choice is between calbear80 and some wishy washy fan who tries to argue that Wyking deserves more time to prove himself, I take calbear80 and anyone like him 100 out of 100 times.

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There you go again, calling some Bear fan a derogatory name, just because he might disagree with you and
calbear80. What are you going to do if by some miracle, Wyking Jones stays, and the team gets much better? It's a hypothetical, but would you be then willing to admit the fan might have been right to give Wyking a chance?

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If facts demonstrate I'm wrong, I'll admit it. Hypothetical for you. If Cal goes 5-20 and 0-13 will you admit you were wrong? Or will you just spin ridiculous hypotheticals where people who are right have to admit that you were right and they were wrong?

OaktownBear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Yogi Bear said:

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SFCityBear said:

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UrsaMajor said:

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hanky1 said:

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I think everyone who criticized calbear80 owes him an apology.

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Not true, Hanky. Many who criticize calbear80 do owe him an apology, but many of the criticisms are not because people disagree, but because he refused for a long time to use the coach's name (which seemed petty) and because he posted the same thing over and over again.

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I will criticize calbear80, and will continue to do so, because his contempt and near-hatred for one man, our coach, has made this season much more unenjoyable than it already was.

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If the choice is between calbear80 and some wishy washy fan who tries to argue that Wyking deserves more time to prove himself, I take calbear80 and anyone like him 100 out of 100 times.

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There you go again, calling some Bear fan a derogatory name, just because he might disagree with you and
calbear80. What are you going to do if by some miracle, Wyking Jones stays, and the team gets much better? It's a hypothetical, but would you be then willing to admit the fan might have been right to give Wyking a chance?

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If facts demonstrate I'm wrong, I'll admit it. Hypothetical for you. If Cal goes 5-20 and 0-13 will you admit you were wrong? Or will you just spin ridiculous hypotheticals where people who are right have to admit that you were right and they were wrong?

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It takes a man to admit his mistakes. It takes a smart man To not keep making the same mistake.

TheFiatLux said:

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helltopay1 said:

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Dear Hanky: The previous Chancellor didn't want to hire a real AD because he really didn't support the major programs, so, Williams was the perfect 'don't rock the boat AD." We now have a real Chancellor and a real AD. In other words, we now have a license to hunt. Now comes the hard part. Making the right decisions most of the time.

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Nicholas Dirks was the single biggest unmitigated disaster to ever happen to the University of California. I told him as much at a cocktail reception before he was fired. I used polite language, but I got my point across. He was a feckless, incompetent, over-his-head personification of the Peter Principle. But worse, he was a total coward who had absolutely no moral compass what-so-ever and would throw students he didn't agree with under the bus. He was an ******* of the highest order. He was a heinous stain on the history of the school.

But other than that....

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As it turns out, we got Dirks the same way we got Berdahl (2nd worst Chancellor in history): Columbia gave him a glowing recommendation to get rid of him; apparently he was a dismal failure there (just as Berdahl was at Texas). Moral: don't believe recommendations.

UrsaMajor said:

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TheFiatLux said:

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helltopay1 said:

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Dear Hanky: The previous Chancellor didn't want to hire a real AD because he really didn't support the major programs, so, Williams was the perfect 'don't rock the boat AD." We now have a real Chancellor and a real AD. In other words, we now have a license to hunt. Now comes the hard part. Making the right decisions most of the time.

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Nicholas Dirks was the single biggest unmitigated disaster to ever happen to the University of California. I told him as much at a cocktail reception before he was fired. I used polite language, but I got my point across. He was a feckless, incompetent, over-his-head personification of the Peter Principle. But worse, he was a total coward who had absolutely no moral compass what-so-ever and would throw students he didn't agree with under the bus. He was an ******* of the highest order. He was a heinous stain on the history of the school.

But other than that....

---

As it turns out, we got Dirks the same way we got Berdahl (2nd worst Chancellor in history): Columbia gave him a glowing recommendation to get rid of him; apparently he was a dismal failure there (just as Berdahl was at Texas). Moral: don't believe recommendations.

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Recommendations can be great IF you can establish the credibility of the people doing the recommending... and on that specific issue, not just in general (see Bill Walsh, who recommended Tom Holmoe).

Bear19 said:

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By all accounts, WJ is a good guy. He's just way, way, way in over his head. I do fault him for taking the job, since he should have known he had no chance to do it anywhere close to even mediocre. Just sayin.

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I'm sure he thought he could do it and it's more money than he was ever going to see. I don't blame him for taking the job. I blame The Guy Nicholas Dirks Hired.

Yogi Bear said:

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Bear19 said:

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By all accounts, WJ is a good guy. He's just way, way, way in over his head. I do fault him for taking the job, since he should have known he had no chance to do it anywhere close to even mediocre. Just sayin.

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I'm sure he thought he could do it and it's more money than he was ever going to see. I don't blame him for taking the job. I blame The Guy Nicholas Dirks Hired.

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Agree, good observation.

Bear19 said:

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SFCityBear said:

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What are you going to do if by some miracle, Wyking Jones stays, and the team gets much better? It's a hypothetical, but would you be then willing to admit the fan might have been right to give Wyking a chance?

---

Yes I would admit that I was wrong.

Of course, since we're indulging in hypotheticals, I choose some that have a better chance of happening:

- I win both the Lotto & SuperLotto in the same week, in fact, before the Summer is out.

- Cal football wins the 2020 National Championship Game. Beau Baldwin is hailed as an offensive genious.

- Before I win the Lotto's, I am asked out on a date by Jessica Alba, who wants to leave her husband to be with me. She says that our difference in age makes me "unbelievably attractive."

- Everyone on BI who in the past has disagreed with me, each posts a letter of apology, begging for my forgiveness.

By all accounts, WJ is a good guy. He's just way, way, way in over his head. I do fault him for taking the job, since he should have known he had no chance to do it anywhere close to even mediocre. Just sayin.

---

That's fine. I would say the same thing if I were wrong, except that I have never said that Jones was not a good coach, only that with such a young team, such a short team, I just don't have enough evidence personally for me to support him or insist that he be fired. I don't measure performance just on wins and losses. There was a lot more cause to call for the firing of Pete Newell after one season, because his record was the worst in Cal history, and he had and All-American and a future All-American in the starting lineup, so his failure looked much worse than Jones' failure at the end of last season. I am disappointed at the seemingly slow progress of Jones' sophomores, after almost two years, but that is the main criticism I have at this point.

I would say that nearly any coach would take a multi-million dollar job, no matter if he thought he was qualified for it or not. I don't fault him for that. When I was working at Cal doing research, one of the maintenance men told me that when he was interviewed for his job, he was asked if he could do arc welding. He said yes, knowing that he had never done any arc welding. He got the job, and asked one of the senior maintenance men to show him how to arc weld. Then he read books on arc welding, and stayed late at night to practice his arc welding. After many years of working with welders, I can say that he was the best damn arc welder I ever saw.

Pete Newell had never coached a day in any league at any level when he was offered the head job at USF. Do you think they asked him if he knew how to coach? We don't know. But he learned fast and soon took USF to the National Title. Considering what he accomplished, if he told the Fathers at USF, "I think I can do the job," that would have been worth the little fib, IMO. BTW, they also asked him to coach the golf team, and I don't know if they asked him if he could do that either. And I don't know what the golf team record was, but I'll bet he turned those golf team members into good men, ready to go out into society and become successful and good citizens, which was and should be the main job of college coaches. Unfortunately, times have changed and money has changed them.

Yogi Bear said:

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Bear19 said:

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...He's just way, way, way in over his head. I do fault him for taking the job, since he should have known he had no chance to do it anywhere close to even mediocre. Just sayin.

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I'm sure he thought he could do it and it's more money than he was ever going to see. I don't blame him for taking the job. I blame The Guy Nicholas Dirks Hired.

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Do you mean you blame Mike Williams for hiring this guy as HC?

Go Bears!

calbear80 said:

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Yogi Bear said:

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Bear19 said:

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...He's just way, way, way in over his head. I do fault him for taking the job, since he should have known he had no chance to do it anywhere close to even mediocre. Just sayin.

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I'm sure he thought he could do it and it's more money than he was ever going to see. I don't blame him for taking the job. I blame The Guy Nicholas Dirks Hired.

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Do you mean you blame Mike Williams for hiring this guy as HC?

Go Bears!

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It's pretty funny you of all people asked that question.

helltopay1 said:

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Dear Yogi; If Cal hired the "kicker", I would go on a kicking spree with such ferocity that no FBI swat team would dare intervene. In addition, I would personally boycott every Cal game at Haas for thge next hundred years. Being deceased would not deter me. Some things are more important than sleep. I would not hire the 'kicker" to coach a third grade CYO team. We used to beat up guys like the "kicker" on the playground because, well, just because. Sometimes weasels look like weasels. Please see Rod Rosenstein. We used to beat up weasels like Rosenstein on thge playground too. Nobody sued us.

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I think Tavecchio would make a fine coach or even Anderson or Brien.

Yogi Bear said:

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socaltownie said:

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For those on the Russel Turner watch (I am) last night they beat the Kicker's Guachos at home by 13 to go to 22 and 5. I haven't checked the RPI lately - but they are trying to get themselves into a position where they do not need to win Big West Tournament to make the show. Meanwhile (cause I am a LOT less sold on him), Kyle's Dons escaped what would have been a brutal loss at Portland (brutal cause there is at least one other D1 program without a conference win and I remain unrealistically hopefully that we might one day get off the ofer.)

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It would upset me to no end if we hired the Kicker to replace Wyking.

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Why Yogi? Because of that one incident or are there other issues?

Go Bears!

calbear80 said:

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Yogi Bear said:

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socaltownie said:

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For those on the Russel Turner watch (I am) last night they beat the Kicker's Guachos at home by 13 to go to 22 and 5. I haven't checked the RPI lately - but they are trying to get themselves into a position where they do not need to win Big West Tournament to make the show. Meanwhile (cause I am a LOT less sold on him), Kyle's Dons escaped what would have been a brutal loss at Portland (brutal cause there is at least one other D1 program without a conference win and I remain unrealistically hopefully that we might one day get off the ofer.)

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It would upset me to no end if we hired the Kicker to replace Wyking.

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Why Yogi? Because of that one incident or are there other issues?

Go Bears!

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Because I think he's dirty and because I don't like him.

Screw the kicker

Word of advice - quit with the Pete Newell comparisons. Wyking is NOT Pete Newell.

Newell had experience before his stop at Cal to warrant the trust a coach should get to improve a team. Wyking does not have that pedigree at all.

Also Newell went 9-16 before going 17-8 in his second season at Cal. Wyking hasn't even touched 9 wins yet in his second season.

You want to make claims about how youre looking at more than wins and losses but every objective stat shows a team that is only getting worse under Wyking.

I get supporting Cal and trusting the process but we need to cut our losses here. I love Cal and only want us to win. I just hope you can come around and see that soon.

Yogi Bear said:

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calbear80 said:

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Yogi Bear said:

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socaltownie said:

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For those on the Russel Turner watch (I am) last night they beat the Kicker's Guachos at home by 13 to go to 22 and 5. I haven't checked the RPI lately - but they are trying to get themselves into a position where they do not need to win Big West Tournament to make the show. Meanwhile (cause I am a LOT less sold on him), Kyle's Dons escaped what would have been a brutal loss at Portland (brutal cause there is at least one other D1 program without a conference win and I remain unrealistically hopefully that we might one day get off the ofer.)

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It would upset me to no end if we hired the Kicker to replace Wyking.

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Why Yogi? Because of that one incident or are there other issues?

Go Bears!

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Because I think he's dirty and because I don't like him.

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+1

panda said:

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Word of advice - quit with the Pete Newell comparisons. Wyking is NOT Pete Newell.

Newell had experience before his stop at Cal to warrant the trust a coach should get to improve a team. Wyking does not have that pedigree at all.

Also Newell went 9-16 before going 17-8 in his second season at Cal. Wyking hasn't even touched 9 wins yet in his second season.

You want to make claims about how youre looking at more than wins and losses but every objective stat shows a team that is only getting worse under Wyking.

I get supporting Cal and trusting the process but we need to cut our losses here. I love Cal and only want us to win. I just hope you can come around and see that soon.

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I often appreciate advice, but before you start giving out advice, I would suggest you read a little more carefully the post you are referring to.

I did mention that Newell had a worse first season at Cal, because he inherited mych better material than Wyking Jones inherited, and he was a highly respected coach, but then later in the post I was writing about Pete Newell, the coach at USF, and how he got his start at USF with literally no coaching experience behind him at all. He was fresh out of the Navy. He had somehow met Jimmy Needles, a long time coach at USF, then retired, and Needles put Newell's name up for the USF head job. I was comparing Newell with Jones only as first year head coaches in their first jobs. I think it is perfectly appropriate to compare one coach with another at the same point in their careers, which was their very first head coaching job with no previous head coaching experience.

You are right that Newell had plenty of head coaching experience before he came to Cal, 4 years at USF, and 4 years at Michigan state, plus an NIT title. However, when he was hired at Cal the bloom was off the rose, as he had had just an average 45-42 record at Michigan State. There were many in the press and in the admin, and among the fans who thought it was a bad hire. There are similarities in the two coaches in their first coaching jobs, in terms of previous experience as head coaches - zero.

Wyking Jones at Cal had an edge over Newell in his first job at USF in that he had a career as an assistant coach, but we know little about the teaching he received from his mentors. He had another edge in that he was a much better college player than Newell, who was just an aggressive defender in college, and fouled out of most games. Newell probably learned something about coaching from Needles, who was highly respected.

Another similarity in the two coaches was the experience of the players on the roster. Jones did inherit two seniors and Coleman, but the rest was made up of sophs and whatever freshmen he could sign. Newell took over the USF program in 1946 from Bill Bussenius, who had coached one year, with a record of 9-12 (Bussenius was my Junior High coach, BTW, and went on to become a highly respected referee, reffing some Final Four games.) Newell, if he did inherit anything, would have been two sophs, Bennington and Giesen, and several freshmen. My point was that Newell took players off Bussenius's losing team, sophs and maybe some freshmen and built that group into a national championship team in their 3rd season under him. In 1947, Newell was 13-14, in 1948 USF was 13-11, and in 1949, they were 25-5. With the graduation of Bennington and Giesen, Newell was 19-7 in 1950, still good enough to get an NIT invite.

My disagreement with those who want the coach fired because he is losing games, and because the team's statistics are not good, is that records and statistics are affected by the competition. You play good teams and you are going to lose games and your stats are not going to look good. Wyking Jones may be the bad coach you all say he is, but NO COACH I know of has a younger team, and not many coaches have a shorter team. Every night Cal goes up against a mismatch in experience and height. Most teams, as Mike Montgomery said in a recent interview posted here, teams are usually made up of juniors and seniors and you try to augment that by recruiting freshmen who will take up those positions as the older players graduate. Wyking Jones has no such luxury. Like every new coach, he has to establish a program before he can look to shoring up his roster. And he has hundreds or thousands of fans who want success right now, expecting major school performance with kids just out of high school playing against a lot of seniors and juniors. Coaching in Newell's day might have been more important than today (IMO), but today is higher paid, and higher profile. Jones will likely get fired because of all that. Pete Newell likely could do no better with this team at this point. At USF, he was able to bring his team along slowly, as he learned coaching and they learned to play together. His NIT championship team had a rotation of two seniors and 5 juniors. Cal right now after two seasons has only one junior in the rotation, the rest are sophs and frosh. Boys playing against men, almost. Wyking Jones doesn't have a chance, and maybe never did.

PS: I love Cal and want them to win. Always have. I don't like firing coaches. Have you ever been fired? I have. Several times. Mostly office politics. Have you ever been a manager and had to fire someone? I've done that too, and was hated for it. It's a messy business, and affects those who do it and those who get it done to them, sometimes it ruins the latter for a long time. All of the Cal coaches who got fired went into oblivion and/or lesser jobs if any. The only coach I wanted fired was Bozeman, and I didn't feel good about that one either.

0-13 this year and 21 losses in a row against Pac-12 opponents is all we need to know.

Go Bears!

oskidunker said:

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Screw the kicker

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I do not understand why people do not like him. We would be a lot better off if we had hired him.

Go Bears!

calbear80 said:

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oskidunker said:

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Screw the kicker

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I do not understand why people do not like him. We would be a lot better off if we had hired him.

Go Bears!

---

Really? Just to help you out, it probably comes down to the following issues in order of relevance:

1. Pasternak was an assistant under Braun and was playing a key role in practices and player development during the decline of the program the last couple years. Some feel that Ben stepping back to be a 'program manager' and Pasternack taking a more active role reflects that Pasternack is less of a coach than Braun.

2. Implications (yet unproven) of his involvement with facilitating payments to players while an assistant at UofA

3. The kicking incident with Jorge in the home game against UofA

Everybody can believe and make judgments on their own, but my feel is that these three issues seem to be the brunt of it. I worked with Pasternack at some summer league programs, when he was at Cal and before that at Indiana (IIRC), he loved basketball and was pretty sharp at player evaluation, practice management and prepping for opponents. Other than the items above (for which I'll reserve my personal judgments), I think he would be a good coach.

BeachedBear, I see your point by of view. You seem quite intelligent. So, please allow me to ask you a question.

Do you think we would 0-15 now if we had hired Pasternak?

Go Bears?

calbear80 said:

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BeachedBear, I see your point by of view. You seem quite intelligent. So, please allow me to ask you a question.

Do you think we would 0-15 now if we had hired Pasternak?

Go Bears?

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Nope. But I don't think any coach would be 0-15. I'm honestly surprised Jones i 0-15. Just random dumb luck in this pathetic P12 season has to be worth at least 2 wins in conference. I don't think he's the right man for the job, but Jones has had bad luck to go along with a deep hole and no experience.

BearGreg said:

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BeachedBear said:

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calbear80 said:

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oskidunker said:

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Screw the kicker

---

I do not understand why people do not like him. We would be a lot better off if we had hired him.

Go Bears!

---

Really? Just to help you out, it probably comes down to the following issues in order of relevance:

1. Pasternak was an assistant under Braun and was playing a key role in practices and player development during the decline of the program the last couple years. Some feel that Ben stepping back to be a 'program manager' and Pasternack taking a more active role reflects that Pasternack is less of a coach than Braun.

2. Implications (yet unproven) of his involvement with facilitating payments to players while an assistant at UofA

3. The kicking incident with Jorge in the home game against UofA

Everybody can believe and make judgments on their own, but my feel is that these three issues seem to be the brunt of it. I worked with Pasternack at some summer league programs, when he was at Cal and before that at Indiana (IIRC), he loved basketball and was pretty sharp at player evaluation, practice management and prepping for opponents. Other than the items above (for which I'll reserve my personal judgments), I think he would be a good coach.

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Beached - Good recap and realize that the three points are not your own rather your sense of others perspectives.

I find #1 humorous - Pasternak was the most junior assistant on that staff and was clearly the smartest person in the room and the hardest working. The perception fans have of blaming him for Braun's issues (see how BB did after he left Cal for more evidence) is the height of creating a whole cloth fictional narrative to fit an opinion.

The one thing Pasternak has going for him is results. What he did at New Orleans was a miracle given the circumstances. He was an effective recruiter and the top assistant of the Pac 12s best program and he's done wonders for a bad UCSB program

Still to be determined whether he was "dirty" and I completely respect that people might just not like him.

Question for everyone here - If you were Knowlton (by which I mean you imagine yourself to be highly rational, objective, new to Cal and interested in what's best for the University in the long run) and you decided to make a change at HC, would you consider Pasternak as a viable candidate? Why/Why not?

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I think he should be considered (we need to cast a wide net and look hard). My points one and three are irrelevant, but if the issue of being dirty is unresolved, then that can be handled withing the contract if he is deemed the best candidate, leaving Cal an out if something arises in further investigations.

BeachedBear said:

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BearGreg said:

---

BeachedBear said:

---

calbear80 said:

---

oskidunker said:

---

Screw the kicker

---

I do not understand why people do not like him. We would be a lot better off if we had hired him.

Go Bears!

---

Really? Just to help you out, it probably comes down to the following issues in order of relevance:

1. Pasternak was an assistant under Braun and was playing a key role in practices and player development during the decline of the program the last couple years. Some feel that Ben stepping back to be a 'program manager' and Pasternack taking a more active role reflects that Pasternack is less of a coach than Braun.

2. Implications (yet unproven) of his involvement with facilitating payments to players while an assistant at UofA

3. The kicking incident with Jorge in the home game against UofA

Everybody can believe and make judgments on their own, but my feel is that these three issues seem to be the brunt of it. I worked with Pasternack at some summer league programs, when he was at Cal and before that at Indiana (IIRC), he loved basketball and was pretty sharp at player evaluation, practice management and prepping for opponents. Other than the items above (for which I'll reserve my personal judgments), I think he would be a good coach.

---

Beached - Good recap and realize that the three points are not your own rather your sense of others perspectives.

I find #1 humorous - Pasternak was the most junior assistant on that staff and was clearly the smartest person in the room and the hardest working. The perception fans have of blaming him for Braun's issues (see how BB did after he left Cal for more evidence) is the height of creating a whole cloth fictional narrative to fit an opinion.

The one thing Pasternak has going for him is results. What he did at New Orleans was a miracle given the circumstances. He was an effective recruiter and the top assistant of the Pac 12s best program and he's done wonders for a bad UCSB program

Still to be determined whether he was "dirty" and I completely respect that people might just not like him.

Question for everyone here - If you were Knowlton (by which I mean you imagine yourself to be highly rational, objective, new to Cal and interested in what's best for the University in the long run) and you decided to make a change at HC, would you consider Pasternak as a viable candidate? Why/Why not?

---

I think he should be considered (we need to cast a wide net and look hard). My points one and three are irrelevant, but if the issue of being dirty is unresolved, then that can be handled withing the contract if he is deemed the best candidate, leaving Cal an out if something arises in further investigations.

---

Agree with this. The whole "kicking" thing is ridiculous.

BearGreg, sounds like you are something of a Pasternak fan, eh? Fair enough. Keep convincing us...

My observation is that the team has gotten better over the season. Every commentator gushes over the improvement of Vanover. Jones hasn't been a success, but lets be objective about his and the team's performance.

SFCityBear said:

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panda said:

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Word of advice - quit with the Pete Newell comparisons. Wyking is NOT Pete Newell.

Newell had experience before his stop at Cal to warrant the trust a coach should get to improve a team. Wyking does not have that pedigree at all.

Also Newell went 9-16 before going 17-8 in his second season at Cal. Wyking hasn't even touched 9 wins yet in his second season.

You want to make claims about how youre looking at more than wins and losses but every objective stat shows a team that is only getting worse under Wyking.

I get supporting Cal and trusting the process but we need to cut our losses here. I love Cal and only want us to win. I just hope you can come around and see that soon.

---

I often appreciate advice, but before you start giving out advice, I would suggest you read a little more carefully the post you are referring to.

I did mention that Newell had a worse first season at Cal, because he inherited mych better material than Wyking Jones inherited, and he was a highly respected coach, but then later in the post I was writing about Pete Newell, the coach at USF, and how he got his start at USF with literally no coaching experience behind him at all. He was fresh out of the Navy. He had somehow met Jimmy Needles, a long time coach at USF, then retired, and Needles put Newell's name up for the USF head job. I was comparing Newell with Jones only as first year head coaches in their first jobs. I think it is perfectly appropriate to compare one coach with another at the same point in their careers, which was their very first head coaching job with no previous head coaching experience.

You are right that Newell had plenty of head coaching experience before he came to Cal, 4 years at USF, and 4 years at Michigan state, plus an NIT title. However, when he was hired at Cal the bloom was off the rose, as he had had just an average 45-42 record at Michigan State. There were many in the press and in the admin, and among the fans who thought it was a bad hire. There are similarities in the two coaches in their first coaching jobs, in terms of previous experience as head coaches - zero.

Wyking Jones at Cal had an edge over Newell in his first job at USF in that he had a career as an assistant coach, but we know little about the teaching he received from his mentors. He had another edge in that he was a much better college player than Newell, who was just an aggressive defender in college, and fouled out of most games. Newell probably learned something about coaching from Needles, who was highly respected.

Another similarity in the two coaches was the experience of the players on the roster. Jones did inherit two seniors and Coleman, but the rest was made up of sophs and whatever freshmen he could sign. Newell took over the USF program in 1946 from Bill Bussenius, who had coached one year, with a record of 9-12 (Bussenius was my Junior High coach, BTW, and went on to become a highly respected referee, reffing some Final Four games.) Newell, if he did inherit anything, would have been two sophs, Bennington and Giesen, and several freshmen. My point was that Newell took players off Bussenius's losing team, sophs and maybe some freshmen and built that group into a national championship team in their 3rd season under him. In 1947, Newell was 13-14, in 1948 USF was 13-11, and in 1949, they were 25-5. With the graduation of Bennington and Giesen, Newell was 19-7 in 1950, still good enough to get an NIT invite.

My disagreement with those who want the coach fired because he is losing games, and because the team's statistics are not good, is that records and statistics are affected by the competition. You play good teams and you are going to lose games and your stats are not going to look good. Wyking Jones may be the bad coach you all say he is, but NO COACH I know of has a younger team, and not many coaches have a shorter team. Every night Cal goes up against a mismatch in experience and height. Most teams, as Mike Montgomery said in a recent interview posted here, teams are usually made up of juniors and seniors and you try to augment that by recruiting freshmen who will take up those positions as the older players graduate. Wyking Jones has no such luxury. Like every new coach, he has to establish a program before he can look to shoring up his roster. And he has hundreds or thousands of fans who want success right now, expecting major school performance with kids just out of high school playing against a lot of seniors and juniors. Coaching in Newell's day might have been more important than today (IMO), but today is higher paid, and higher profile. Jones will likely get fired because of all that. Pete Newell likely could do no better with this team at this point. At USF, he was able to bring his team along slowly, as he learned coaching and they learned to play together. His NIT championship team had a rotation of two seniors and 5 juniors. Cal right now after two seasons has only one junior in the rotation, the rest are sophs and frosh. Boys playing against men, almost. Wyking Jones doesn't have a chance, and maybe never did.

PS: I love Cal and want them to win. Always have. I don't like firing coaches. Have you ever been fired? I have. Several times. Mostly office politics. Have you ever been a manager and had to fire someone? I've done that too, and was hated for it. It's a messy business, and affects those who do it and those who get it done to them, sometimes it ruins the latter for a long time. All of the Cal coaches who got fired went into oblivion and/or lesser jobs if any. The only coach I wanted fired was Bozeman, and I didn't feel good about that one either.

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your "PS" was the best part. Been there done that SF.

Maybe hire Pasternak with the condition that Jorge gets to kick him back during halftime of the USC football game.

KenBurnski said:

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Maybe hire Pasternak with the condition that Jorge gets to kick him back during halftime of the USC football game.

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+1 ...in the nutsack?

BeachedBear said:

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I think he should be considered (we need to cast a wide net and look hard). My points one and three are irrelevant, but if the issue of being dirty is unresolved, then that can be handled withing the contract if he is deemed the best candidate, leaving Cal an out if something arises in further investigations.

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This is rational, BB, but not practical. The investigation is going to grind slowly. What if he's found to be "dirty" along about December? We have to fire another coach and start another search. We can't afford to have that much ongoing uncertainty.

I couldn't care less about the Pasternack incident with Jorge. Ancient history.

But I'd be floored completely if we even kicked the tires on him. Even based on the very limited information publicly available on Arizona's transgressions, he's already complicit in several ncaa violations. I don't doubt that he's a good coach, good recruiter and a good basketball mind, but he's been right in the middle of everything that's turned a lot of college basketball into a cesspool of illegality and ethical dereliction. Had he stayed at Arizona and not taken the UCSB job, there's a pretty decent chance he would have been arrested already given the direct nature of his relationships and contacts to the others involved. The timing of that move may very well have saved his bacon for now.

I surely hope we can do better than this.

UrsaMajor said:

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BeachedBear said:

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I think he should be considered (we need to cast a wide net and look hard). My points one and three are irrelevant, but if the issue of being dirty is unresolved, then that can be handled withing the contract if he is deemed the best candidate, leaving Cal an out if something arises in further investigations.

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This is rational, BB, but not practical. The investigation is going to grind slowly. What if he's found to be "dirty" along about December? We have to fire another coach and start another search. We can't afford to have that much ongoing uncertainty.

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Absolutely, Unless he were head and shoulders above the other candidates, there is no reason to take the chance on him.

This is awesome!

BearGreg said:

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BeachedBear said:

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calbear80 said:

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oskidunker said:

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Screw the kicker

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I do not understand why people do not like him. We would be a lot better off if we had hired him.

Go Bears!

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Really? Just to help you out, it probably comes down to the following issues in order of relevance:

1. Pasternak was an assistant under Braun and was playing a key role in practices and player development during the decline of the program the last couple years. Some feel that Ben stepping back to be a 'program manager' and Pasternack taking a more active role reflects that Pasternack is less of a coach than Braun.

2. Implications (yet unproven) of his involvement with facilitating payments to players while an assistant at UofA

3. The kicking incident with Jorge in the home game against UofA

Everybody can believe and make judgments on their own, but my feel is that these three issues seem to be the brunt of it. I worked with Pasternack at some summer league programs, when he was at Cal and before that at Indiana (IIRC), he loved basketball and was pretty sharp at player evaluation, practice management and prepping for opponents. Other than the items above (for which I'll reserve my personal judgments), I think he would be a good coach.

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Beached - Good recap and realize that the three points are not your own rather your sense of others perspectives.

I find #1 humorous - Pasternak was the most junior assistant on that staff and was clearly the smartest person in the room and the hardest working. The perception fans have of blaming him for Braun's issues (see how BB did after he left Cal for more evidence) is the height of creating a whole cloth fictional narrative to fit an opinion.

The one thing Pasternak has going for him is results. What he did at New Orleans was a miracle given the circumstances. He was an effective recruiter and the top assistant of the Pac 12s best program and he's done wonders for a bad UCSB program

Still to be determined whether he was "dirty" and I completely respect that people might just not like him.

Question for everyone here - If you were Knowlton (by which I mean you imagine yourself to be highly rational, objective, new to Cal and interested in what's best for the University in the long run) and you decided to make a change at HC, would you consider Pasternak as a viable candidate? Why/Why not?

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No. I don't understand this (what I think is) weird obsession with him. There have got to be literally scores of people as or more qualified (and no I'm not going to list them).

And then there's that thing of kicking one of Cal's most beloved players and NOT apologizing for it. The dude did something that we all saw, was caught on camera and all he had to do was say "you know, that split second heat of the moment got to me, and boy I'm embarrassed and sorry. It may not look like it, but I didn't mean any disrepect or injury, it was just a bad reflex. I'm really sorry." Nope, couldn't do that. Dug in and claimed what we all saw wasn't what we all saw. That tells me all I need to know about his character.

Hard pass.