Marcus is the man for MUN hoops job
With uncertainty surrounding NBL Canada, he might consider coaching again
The search is on for a new men’s basketball coach at Memorial University, and good luck to Sea-hawks athletic director Karen Murphy with that task.
She’ll need it. Memorial — no surprise! — doesn’t have a lot of money, so enticing a top-flight university coach to St. John’s will be that much more difficult.
It doesn’t help that the Seahawks’ program has been an Atlantic University Sport doormat for as long as anyone can remember.
The university, we suppose, could settle for another Todd Aughey, a young coach from the mainland who would accept a Memorial offer if only to break into Canadian U Sports basketball.
It was Aughey who ran the show prior to Peter Benoite’s arrival in 2010, nearly running the program into the ground.
Or the university could go after a former player, like Benoite, to take the coach’s whistle.
Carl English’s name has also surfaced, now that he’s done playing.
But English isn’t a coach, and this is a critical time for the Sea-hawks. They need a coach, and a good one, not merely a former player who happened to be good once upon a time.
Good players don’t always make good coaches. Benoite proved that. Just because you’ve travelled on jets doesn’t mean you can fly one.
So on that note, here’s a thought. Maybe there’s a coach right under Memorial’s nose, a career hoops guy who has cut his teeth in college and the pro game.
Not sure if Steve Marcus would be interested in the Sea-hawks’ job, but it’s worth exploring.
But Marcus is gainfully employed, no, as coach of the St. John’s Edge?
Yes, but for how long? This is not to suggest his job performance is leading to imminent firing. And it’s not about the Edge.
Rather, this is about the wobbly National Basketball League of Canada, and whether there will even be an NBLC after this whole COVID-19 thing.
Not that we’re privy to inside information, but the cancellation of the 2019-20 season has to be financially killing some teams in the eight-team operation.
This is a league that relies on ticket sales and corporate sponsorship. If there are no games, and no sponsors, there’s no money coming in. No money, no league. We’re hearing rumblings some teams are far from certain to be returning next season.
Where do the Edge stand? And with this uncertainty, where does this leave Marcus?
Looking for another job, maybe?
Steve Marcus, from Springfield, Mass., meet Karen Murphy.
Marcus was involved in college basketball, first with NCAA St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York as a student-manager. Then came a job in basketball operations for the NBA Gleague’s Maine Red Claws.
After that, he took on a more involved role as a graduate assistant coach for North Carolina State University. It was through his time at NC State that he found his way back to the pros again, thanks to Jeff Dunlap, who took Marcus with him to St. John’s when the former was named the Edge’s first coach.
Late in the 2018-19 season, when Doug Plumb up and quit as coach of the Edge with just two games left in the regular schedule, it was Marcus, the assistant, who was thrust into the head coaching role and left to pick up the pieces as the team headed into the post-season.
Once playoffs started, players started dropping like flies. There were injuries to key personnel like English and Glen Davis (with Big Baby, there were other issues/ headaches to deal with), Dez Lee, Junior Cadougan and Shaquille Keith.
Nevertheless, Marcus somehow managed to guide the Edge to the final, where St. John’s lost in a sweep to the Moncton Magic.
He’s proven he can coach. He’s a coach the Memorial Sea-hawks need.
Get him signed. Do it now.