Ex-AD glad FSU stuck with coach
Bianchi: Hart stood by hoops coach Hamilton in tough early years.
Former Florida State athletics director Dave Hart attended an FSU basketball game against Syracuse earlier this month and couldn’t help but smile to himself at the raucous atmosphere inside the arena, the amazing skill, depth and tenacity of the Seminoles’ basketball team and the giddiness of so many fans and boosters who thanked Hart for believing in coach Leonard Hamilton all those years ago.
“It was kind of cool,” Hart said during a phone conversation Wednesday. “Some of those same people who came up to me at the Syracuse game were among those during Leonard’s early years who said, ‘Dave, we need to start another coaching search.’ And now they’re saying to me, ‘Wow, are we happy Leonard Hamilton is still our basketball coach!’ It’s somewhat amusing, but mostly it’s heartwarming to see the fan base embrace Coach Hamilton and what he has built at FSU.”
Thanks, in part, to Dave Hart, Hamilton is now in his 18th season at Florida State and currently has the Seminoles ranked No. 6 in the country and all alone atop the ACC standings. Hamilton is FSU’s all-time winningest men’s basketball coach and the fifth-winningest coach in the storied history of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
I’ve touched on this topic before, but it bears repeating in today’s short-fuse, knee-jerk world of college athletics. Simply put, there needs to be more leaders today like Dave Hart — athletics directors who are willing to patiently and prudently stand up against the prevailing winds and back up coaches trying to rebuild tattered programs.
Instead, it seems, the common strategy of today is to pull the plug after a couple of years, plunk down millions of dollars in buyout money and then start the process all over again.
“The day has passed where coaches sign a five-year contract and they get all five of those years to rebuild and have the level of success everyone desires,” Hart said. “Now we’re seeing coaches fired in less than two years. The world has changed.”
As someone who grew a college sports fan in the state of Florida and then became a sports writer covering this state for my entire career, it’s fascinating for me to hear some of our most historic figures go back in time and relive some of the decisions they made. Why did iconic Florida athletics director Jeremy Foley hire a young, unproven Billy Donovan? Why did Dave Hart not fire an increasingly unpopular Leonard Hamilton?
Hart had Hamilton’s back even though the coach failed to make the NCAA Tournament during his first six years on the job. He fended off big-time boosters who wanted Hamilton fired
and tried to educate cynical media members like myself as to why Hamilton was
thisclose to turning the corner. Hart acknowledges he is a big believer in the old proverb: “The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not smashing it.”
Hart officially retired from college athletics a couple of years ago but has his own college sports consulting firm — Athletics Legacy Partners — designed to help college administrators assess and improve their own programs. Perhaps Hart’s No. 1 piece of advice for up-and-coming young ADs should be a famous quote the late, great Duke AD Tom Butters once recited to me: “If you listen to the fans, you’ll soon find yourself sitting with them.”
Butters, of course, is the athletics director who stood by struggling young coach Mike Krzyzewski even though Krzyzewski was 38-47 in his first three seasons at Duke. Many boosters were irate and demanded that Butters get rid of Coach K.
After Butters retired to a golf community in Florida, I interviewed him once amid Coach K’s run of five national titles, 12 Final Fours and more than 1,000 victories. Butters told me then, “You cannot let the alumni tell you who to fire. I knew our coach [Krzyzewski] was the absolute right man for the job.”
Then he deadpanned: “I think in time my decision may still work out.”
Hart tells a similar story today when talking about Hamilton and why he decided to stand by him even though the Seminoles couldn’t get over the hump at the same time Donovan was beginning his legendary career with the rival Gators.
“I never got offended by fans who wanted to vent; who were frustrated and wanted to have a successful program,” Hart said. “I left the arena frustrated myself many times during those years, but I think I understood the total picture. A lot of times [fans and media] are seeing just pieces of the puzzle; they’re not seeing the complete puzzle. As an athletic director, you have to see the big picture and realize that major rebuilds aren’t going to happen overnight. You have to give a coach time to turn the corner.”
In today’s world — when the social media mob is ready to fire coaches with the press of a button — you wonder if Hart would have been able to withstand the onslaught of fan criticism and save Hamilton’s job.
“Yes, I would,” he insisted, “except I might be the one to get fired instead. There’s no question, it’s harder now. Because of social media, there are more opinions than ever before, but you still have to make the decisions you feel are right.”
Hart says he still regularly stays in contact with Hamilton and talked to him just a couple of days ago.
“I am having a blast following his team,” Hart said. “When you look at the environment he’s created and the excitement surrounding Florida State basketball, people should stand up and salute Leonard Hamilton.”
And while you’re at it, take your hat off for Dave Hart.
Sometimes, the best decisions are the ones you don’t make.