Evaluating Weir will be complicated, AD says
Nuñez: Record only part of the review
The Lobo men’s basketball team doesn’t operate in a bubble — neither a COVID bubble, nor one that is capable of muting the increasing noise of outside calls for the ouster of fourth-year head coach Paul Weir.
And those calls haven’t just been on social media, sports callin shows or to the local newspaper. University of New Mexico athletic director Eddie Nuñez has taken his share of such calls, the Journal has learned, from alumni and donors of the Lobo Club — with varying degrees of empathy for the pandemic-driven circumstances the team has dealt with this season due to New Mexico’s public health order.
This week, as the struggling Lobos (5-11 overall, 1-11 Mountain West) made the unprecedented move to call off a series with league rival San Diego State, citing COVID-related issues even though there is no active COVID-19 case on the team, both Weir and Nuñez fielded questions about how the coach’s future should be decided in a COVID-controlled season.
“My intention,” Nuñez said, “as always, is to let a season go (until its completion), evaluate it and then be able to sit down with the coaches and go through all aspects of the entire season — where our program currently is, where a program needs to be and what we need to do to get it to where we want it to be.”
Of course other factors Nuñez must consider is he’s also overseeing a department on its way to what he has warned his bosses could post more than a $10 million shortfall this fiscal year. So the appetite for a coaching move and buyout with two years left on a contract might not be there for those tasked with fiscal oversight of the entire university.
On the other hand, Lobo basketball is still the athletic department’s cash cow, bringing in regularly $3.5 million or more in ticket revenue (far more
than all other Lobo sports combined). So Nuñez must balance the potential hit of customers not returning to the Pit next season with the contractual obligation of a buyout that would cost roughly $700,000 for the final two seasons of Weir’s six-year deal.
Nuñez, who signed off on this week’s cancellation of the SDSU series due to what UNM feels are COVID-19 related issues, said the evaluation process of all coaches this year can’t be about wins and losses.
“You have to take every factor into consideration — what the teams are dealing with, what the actual student-athletes are dealing with, what circumstances are different for us than other places,” Nuñez said.
“First and foremost, did we do everything that we needed to do to keep our studentathletes safe and put them in a position to be successful? If we’ve done that, then did we maximize our opportunities so that our student-athletes continue to get better? And that’s a big one for me. This year, if it’s not about wins and losses, it’s about are we doing everything to get better?”
As for Weir, asked this week if he was “confident” he’d be back next season, he was blunt.
“That’s not my decision,” Weir said.
He also acknowledged, as he has since he was hired, the pressure coaching this program goes beyond wins and losses. He says he probably could have practiced more in the summer and fall against the state’s public health order, but felt part of the responsibility of running the Lobo program came with knowing people were watching and others — other UNM teams and even high school sports in the state — might be affected if they had a misstep.
“That was something I had to be at peace with a long time ago when this season started and we were kind of faced with what we were faced with,” Weir said. “… If I wanted to practice, if I wanted to do certain things that I probably could have gotten away with, we could have done those things, but I just couldn’t quite do that. I felt a responsibility to these young men. I felt a responsibility to UNM, I felt a responsibility to the high school kids out there that want to play sports. To the other people here at UNM. …
“I hold my head high, and put my head on the pillow feeling as though whatever question you’re about to come up with, I accepted those, and I knew those were coming. And if I was worried about those, I wouldn’t have acted this way along the way.”