AGGIES NAME COACH
Chris Jans was fired in 2015 by Bowling Green for incident in bar
New Mexico State has hired Wichita State assistant Chris Jans as its basketball coach
LAS CRUCES — The guy who wanted to hire him called the guy who two years ago decided to fire him.
Naturally, since it deals with the New Mexico State Aggies, the conversation took place with one being on a shotgun range.
New Mexico State athletic director Mario Moccia needed to be comfortable with a few things before he was ready to pull the trigger on hiring Chris Jans as the 26th head coach of the Aggies men’s basketball team.
And whether or not he could coach basketball wasn’t one of them.
Moccia and the seven-person NMSU search committee, who interviewed six finalists since last Thursday, needed to be convinced from the 48-year-old Jans that he had remorse about the March 2015 incident in an Ohio bar when, among other things, his touching of a woman’s buttocks led to his being fired from his only other Division I head coaching job. But Moccia also needed to hear from those who made the decision to fire him.
“I know the former athletic director at Bowling Green State University (Christopher Kingston),” Moccia said. “I called him up. He was at the shotgun range. I said, ‘You know what I’m calling for.’ He said, ‘Hire him.’ That’s what he said.”
Moccia, who works on a campus comprised of a 54 percent female student body population, took a couple more steps. He got the blessing of the NMSU office of institutional equity director. And he contacted the Bowling Green president. Moccia said, “She was positive about everyone deserves a second chance.”
Jans, who got choked up several times during Monday’s introductory news conference, knew what was coming and owned up to his actions as best he could without getting into specifics of what took place that night.
“As coaches, we talk all the time about consequences and actions,” Jans said. “I failed that night. It was embarrassing. It was embarrassing for
my family. … I’m not proud of it. But I wasn’t going to let it define me.”
The question was never about the basketball résumé of Jans, a highly regarded assistant. He spent 10 of his 25 years in college basketball coaching with the Wichita State Shockers, where he was promoted last week to associate head coach under Gregg Marshall. He is replacing former head coach Paul Weir, who last week took the head coaching job at in-state rival New Mexico. It was all about whether NMSU felt it was worth it to take the public relations hit.
“I get that some people aren’t into second chances,” Moccia said. “I am, especially when somebody demonstrates to the best of their ability that they’re worthy of that . ... I certainly understand people being skeptical. And I hope Chris earns their trust.”
Asked how he’d handle the exact same scenario if it played out with one of his now Aggie players or coaching staff, Jans said he would hope he serves as an example about how poor decisions can change your life. After the news conference, asked a second time by the Journal about that same scenario playing out with someone he now oversees or coaches, he was much more direct.
“Oh, we’ll have a disciplined team,” Jans said. “I promise you that.”
Jans’ contract is for four years (through the 2020-21 season) with a base salary for the first season of $250,000. That bumps up to $270,000 in year two and $290,000 in years three and four and in year five if he gets an automatic one-season extension for winning the Western Athletic Conference in his first two seasons.
Should he leave NMSU, his buyout, a point of contention with Weir, would require him in the first two seasons to pay 100 percent of whatever compensation is remaining on the contract. That would drop to 50 percent in years three through five.
Among his bonuses are $2,500 for each regular season win over rivals UTEP or New Mexico.
Asked if he had been asked about beating those rivals during the interview process, Jans deadpanned, “I think that’s been brought up a few times.”
He did not have much to say yet about a potential assistant coaching staff or the current Aggies players, saying the cram session on that begins now.