“This isn't going to stand! We need better for this program!”
That's Scarlet Knights athletic director Tony Druben angrily throwing **** against the wall, nearly causing his college degree to fall off its crooked perch. He's just fired coach Eddie Jordan, who failed to bring the program to Midwest 10 prominence -- a 7-25 season landing the team instead near the bottom of pretty much every statistical calculation. Prior to that, Mike Rice had humiliated the program when ESPN's “Inside The Lines” broadcast his 'unorthodox' coaching methods as the program was investigating becoming a part of the fabled Midwest 10 conference.
Since that conference jump, the Knights have gone 3-33 in conference, becoming a Division 1 laughingstock.
That's where I come in.
I'm the one standing here calmly in the athletic director's office, watching him throw a rather epic temper tantrum just an hour before he's going to calmly stand before the press and announce my hiring as the new head coach of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. I'll be getting $250,000 a year for three years to turn this program into something we all can be proud of. I get to put my east-coast recruiting to the test and prove that Rutgers' joining the Midwest 10 was not just a gigantic cluster-fuck. I've been an assistant under Tom Crean in Indiana for the last four seasons, including their two conference title runs. And though I never played college ball, I grew up in New York City, where I watched pretty much every game I could, learning all the intricacies about what players turn into stars. I honed that while coaching with the Hoosiers, hitting the recruiting trail and bringing them top talent.
That's what's going to happen here in Rutgers.
I am Seth Reinghold. I am your new coach in East Rutherford.
And we WILL be back in the NCAA tournament before I get my first coaching extension.
Fun stuff ahead ...