What Would You Say to Jim Crews

[Quality Is Job 1]

If this hypothetical chance conversation were happening today, it would be just as I said earlier — a brief exchange of pleasantries.  However, if the conversation were happening in, say, April of 2018, after the dust has settled both for Billikens fans and for Coach Crews, then I would think it appropriate to augment the conversation:

"Really enjoyed the championship run, but it's unfortunate that you weren't able to build that into something sustainable.  Now that you've had time to reflect, have you thought of anything that you might have done differently?"

I have little doubt that Crews is a good person, and I also think he's a good basketball coach.  I wouldn't be surprised if he would be doing appearances at clinics after a couple of years.  The problem is that his approach may have been appropriate for the 1970s or anytime for high school, but in today's major college basketball landscape it's more important to be a good program builder and program manager than to be a good coach.  Guys like Calipari and Pitino (and even Ford) specialize more in the program management aspect.  And adding strategic acumen at a level of at least A-minus (maybe B-plus) to high level program management produces an elite coach like Krzyzewski and Izzo.

[cheeseman]

28 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

If this hypothetical chance conversation were happening today, it would be just as I said earlier — a brief exchange of pleasantries.  However, if the conversation were happening in, say, April of 2018, after the dust has settled both for Billikens fans and for Coach Crews, then I would think it appropriate to augment the conversation:

"Really enjoyed the championship run, but it's unfortunate that you weren't able to build that into something sustainable.  Now that you've had time to reflect, have you thought of anything that you might have done differently?"

I have little doubt that Crews is a good person, and I also think he's a good basketball coach.  I wouldn't be surprised if he would be doing appearances at clinics after a couple of years.  The problem is that his approach may have been appropriate for the 1970s or anytime for high school, but in today's major college basketball landscape it's more important to be a good program builder and program manager than to be a good coach.  Guys like Calipari and Pitino (and even Ford) specialize more in the program management aspect.  And adding strategic acumen at a level of at least A-minus (maybe B-plus) to high level program management produces an elite coach like Krzyzewski and Izzo.

Generally I believe if people want to give you money you should take it so if SLU was stupid enough to hire him as their coach and give him somewhere in the nature of $800K per year then why blame him.  The problem is when they give you the money you have to still do the job.  If he did not work as hard at recruiting ( as someone stated previously) that was needed/expected then he should not have taken the money.  This is not a definition of a good person in my mind.  Sure he hasn't committed crimes and was probably nice to people but taking money that you have no intention of doing the job the right way then I am sorry that is just wrong.

[Old guy]

Cheeseman I have issues with your post. The concepts about not performing adequately doing a specific job or a portion of a job is not a matter for an employee to determine (everybody thinks they are doing their job all the time), it is up to the supervisor, boss, etc.. to let the employee know and be clear about the specific performance levels required. No employee is going to voluntarily forgo his income because of self confessed performance failures, this just does not happen. If the AD does nothing the coach is also likely not to do anything. This is a shared responsibility between the coach and the AD. Crews is not the sole person responsible for damaging the team the way it was damaged. The responsibility for Crews' (and his coaching staff) actions is shared with the AD and whoever else it was that accepted what Crews was doing at the time. 

Now, that said I agree that we do not know how the AD handled the situation prior to the time when the coaching staff was terminated in a sudden fashion. It must also be understood that time must  be allowed for fixes and remedies to take hold, which may indeed have been the case here. We could assume the AD discussed the situation with Crews and his staff and required remedies and fixes that did not materialize prior to the firing, but we just do not know what happened.

[cheeseman]

1 hour ago, Old guy said:

Cheeseman I have issues with your post. The concepts about not performing adequately doing a specific job or a portion of a job is not a matter for an employee to determine (everybody thinks they are doing their job all the time), it is up to the supervisor, boss, etc.. to let the employee know and be clear about the specific performance levels required. No employee is going to voluntarily forgo his income because of self confessed performance failures, this just does not happen. If the AD does nothing the coach is also likely not to do anything. This is a shared responsibility between the coach and the AD. Crews is not the sole person responsible for damaging the team the way it was damaged. The responsibility for Crews' (and his coaching staff) actions is shared with the AD and whoever else it was that accepted what Crews was doing at the time. 

Now, that said I agree that we do not know how the AD handled the situation prior to the time when the coaching staff was terminated in a sudden fashion. It must also be understood that time must  be allowed for fixes and remedies to take hold, which may indeed have been the case here. We could assume the AD discussed the situation with Crews and his staff and required remedies and fixes that did not materialize prior to the firing, but we just do not know what happened.

Some one previously stated that they knew that Crews was not putting the time in to recruit properly.  Given that shared information that  Crews had no interest in putting the time in to productively recruit - a major part of the job - then taking the job and the money is not ethical.  Now, you can say no one knows but the AD and the coach if he was putting in the time but I assert that finding out if a coach is recruiting hard is easy to figure out.  Enough people who are close to the recruiting scene and the coaches can easily determine if the effort is being put in - it was common knowledge for example that Spoon did not like to recruit and did the minimum which surely was one of the reasons for him leaving by not having the horses in place.  We also know that when Crews was coaxed out of retirement by RM as a last ditch effort to fill an assistant coach position that was vacated so late that no candidates were available that part of the deal was that Crews would not have to recruit so we have evidence that recruiting was not his thing.  I do agree that the AD does have some blame to share first because they gave him the job and the money and second, they should have been monitoring him.  The problem is that once the 5 year contract was signed, the AD then was stuck with Crews and salary when things started to go south. Yes the AD ate the last 2 years of the contract which I was told by a reliable source was because some top boosters stepped in and paid the money - it is also  my understanding that it was delivered to May as kind of an ultimatum - perhaps not given so coarsely but yet understood.  You can say that the damage is not all Crews but he was the coach and he hired all the assistants as well as directed the activities and players to go after.  Yes I understand that you can then say May is responsible because he is the supervisor of Crews.  However, if May had micromanaged Crews he would have be derided and besides then he would have owned the failure also.  I would also suggest that the way the firing took place - in NY after the conference tourney loss and not letting everybody fly home first - tells me that May could not wait to dump Crews.  By the way, my point simply was that if Crews took the job and the money - remember I said generally I am fine with people taking money that people insist they take - but was not interested in putting the time in that the job requires then I think they are wrong and not what I would call ethical people.  

[Old guy]

OK Cheeseman, it is a complex situation, that I do understand. You also know details that I was not aware of. The main thing is that it is over. Let the Administration worry about the money, the damage is done and it is time to close this sorry event.

[David King]

The words "Jim Crews" should be stricken from anything related to the Billikens. He should be the Voldemort of Saint Louis University. The Athletic Dept. should petition the A-10, the Sporting News, and the NABC to strip Jim Crews of his Coach of the Year titles, because he tested positive for sucking out loud. SLU fraternities should encourage their pledge classes to road trip to whatever God forsaken town that Crews is holed up in, storm his compound, and seek and destroy any and all awards related to his tenure at Saint Louis University. He should be hung in effigy in the middle of campus until SLU has another winning season. The legendary Bobby Knight's legacy is slightly tarnished as a result of the fact that he recruited, coached and later hired Crews as an assistant coach at IU.

On the flip side, a statue of Rick Majerus should be erected in the center of campus. He is truly the greatest coach in Billikens history. The best proof of this is that he built a team that , despite being inherited by an imbecile, finished 28-7 and 27-7 the two years after his passing.

I don't blame the AD for the Crews debacle. After back to back A-10 Coach of the Year awards, there was no way Crews would be fired after one bad season. In a way, we were fortunate that Crews was so bad. At least we didn't have to sit through 17 years of 0.500+/- teams like the saps in Evansville. It was 2 and done and on to the Travis Ford era,

 

[cheeseman]

9 hours ago, Old guy said:

OK Cheeseman, it is a complex situation, that I do understand. You also know details that I was not aware of. The main thing is that it is over. Let the Administration worry about the money, the damage is done and it is time to close this sorry event.

Fair enough but the subject of the thread was "What would you say to Jim Crews"  I only tried to stay on topic and explain my original contribution to the thread which was "thanks for nothing"

[Old guy]

Which is a perfectly good thing to say cheeseman, if you are going to say anything to him. 

[slufanskip]

I'd ask him if he'd like to be an Asst for my 6th grade girls team. Then if he accepted, I'd pause for a moment and say No, nevermind. I've seen you coach before.

[DeSmetBilliken]

I'd probably thank him for helping the team through Majerus' death. 

Then, if I was feeling more antagonistic, I'd probably ask him how on earth did he think that Jordan Goodwin wasn't good enough for his team, but that Brett Jolly was.

[Former Bill]

On 12/9/2016 at 6:02 PM, Quality Is Job 1 said:

If this hypothetical chance conversation were happening today, it would be just as I said earlier — a brief exchange of pleasantries.  However, if the conversation were happening in, say, April of 2018, after the dust has settled both for Billikens fans and for Coach Crews, then I would think it appropriate to augment the conversation:

"Really enjoyed the championship run, but it's unfortunate that you weren't able to build that into something sustainable.  Now that you've had time to reflect, have you thought of anything that you might have done differently?"

I have little doubt that Crews is a good person, and I also think he's a good basketball coach.  I wouldn't be surprised if he would be doing appearances at clinics after a couple of years.  The problem is that his approach may have been appropriate for the 1970s or anytime for high school, but in today's major college basketball landscape it's more important to be a good program builder and program manager than to be a good coach.  Guys like Calipari and Pitino (and even Ford) specialize more in the program management aspect.  And adding strategic acumen at a level of at least A-minus (maybe B-plus) to high level program management produces an elite coach like Krzyzewski and Izzo.

I couldn't agree with you more. I genuinely believe is is a good guy and a good coach but put to much into platt which failed us miseribly. I also think crews and the previous staff was a better x&o staff than this current staff as far as in game adjustments and scouting reports. I think ford and this staff is amazing at recruiting which is what we need so badly. Nice to see ford pick up Goodwin and Gordon Among others. 

[brianstl]

1 hour ago, Former Bill said:

I couldn't agree with you more. I genuinely believe is is a good guy and a good coach but put to much into platt which failed us miseribly. I also think crews and the previous staff was a better x&o staff than this current staff as far as in game adjustments and scouting reports. I think ford and this staff is amazing at recruiting which is what we need so badly. Nice to see ford pick up Goodwin and Gordon Among others. 

You can't be serious with this stuff.  Platt was nothing more than an extension of Crews in every way.  Everything Platt did was what Crews wanted him to do.  The two had a long history together at Army.  This is some crazy rewriting of history.

[johnbj14]

I'd ask him if a hotdog is a sandwich. An answer of yes would explain so much from his tenure. 

[Soderball]

5 hours ago, brianstl said:

You can't be serious with this stuff.  Platt was nothing more than an extension of Crews in every way.  Everything Platt did was what Crews wanted him to do.  The two had a long history together at Army.  This is some crazy rewriting of history.

This Crews apologist is absolutely out of control. He has five posts, all defending his homeboy.

 

Crews sucked. The Billikens just barely scraped by the 338 Pomeroy team, at home, and after they had played another road game less than 24 hours before.

Crews recruited absolutely nobody that has had real basketball talent. They've all been mediocre at best. Every one of them. He missed on EVERY recruit.