Lobos hire former Aggies coach to lead team
Former NMSU coach takes over Lobos, acknowledges tough task ahead of him
During his search for the latest men’s basketball coach at The University of New Mexico, Paul Krebs spoke to the media about the importance of every new hire “winning the press conference.”
On Tuesday in The Pit, the UNM athletic director’s choice as the next man to lead the Lobos scored a knockout victory when he broke with tradition and refused to don the cherry blazer that has become synonymous with introducing a new coach to the public.
After stepping to the dais following a few brief words from the school’s acting president and then a few more by Krebs, Paul Weir took the jacket from his boss in a ceremonial handoff before hiding it out of site behind the podium.
“They wanted me to wear the red blazer,” Weir said. “I told them I hadn’t earned it yet.”
Well played, coach. In one fell swoop he acknowledged the room full of boosters, paid homage to the Lobo tradition and demonstrated his humility with letting everyone know he’s got work to do.
The Pit scoreboards should have read: Paul Weir 1, Recent History 0.
After three straight disappointing seasons under Craig Neal, UNM fired their former favorite son and hired Weir away from downstate rival New Mexico State. He becomes the 21st coach in school history and, at just 37 years of age, comes to Albuquerque with a takeno-prisoners attitude.
He vowed to instill the modern-day versions of former Aggies coach Neil McCarthy and legendary Lobos front man Norm Ellenberger into future teams at UNM. He also quoted Mike Tyson, Lute Olson and a Greek philosopher, made reference to his ties to former Lobo coach Steve Alford and joked about the awkward spot he put his wife, Alma, in by taking the job three hours north of her native Las Cruces.
“Me coming here, it’s going to have an interesting impact on the Lobo-Aggie rivalry,” Weir said. “I’ll concern myself with that first game as soon as it gets here but right now I’ve got a few other things to take care of first.”
Weir was given a six-year contract with a base salary of $625,000 in the first year. He will be required to pay New Mexico State $500,000 as part of a buyout for ending his contract early with the Aggies, but Krebs said UNM is not involved in covering that cost in any way.
Details of Weir’s deal with UNM will be finalized in the coming days and he said he and his representatives are hammering out a way to pay the buyout to NMSU.
Weir was asked about his coaching staff, specifically the status of Guy Meyer. A St. Michael’s graduate who joined Weir’s staff at NMSU, Meyer is on Weir’s short list of potential Lobo assistants.
“Guy’s a fantastic young coach who brought a lot to our program and I couldn’t be happier in my relationship with him,” Weir said.
Chief among Weir’s immediate tasks is salvaging what’s left of the fluid situation that is the team’s roster. In the weeks before Neal’s dismissal March 31, four returning scholarship players announced they were leaving the team to play elsewhere. There are at least three incoming recruits already signed for next season and Monday was the start of the late signing period for additional players.
Weir didn’t specifically address whether he had any contact with the four transfers, but did say he met with the entire team Tuesday morning. Several of them, including Xavier Adams, Connor MacDougall and Dane Kuiper stood in the back of the room watching Tuesday’s press conference.
Most of the questions during the 45-minute presser were directed at Krebs. He said there were five finalists who went through the interview process. The others were San Antonio Spurs assistant James Borrego, UT-Arlington head coach Scott Cross, East Tennessee State head coach Steve Forbes and Florida Gulf Coast head coach Joe Dooley.
False media reports claimed Borrego had been offered the job and accepted the position last Thursday night, which Krebs categorically denied. In fact, he said, one of the candidates pulled his name out of the running when those reports began circulating.
Weir said he wasn’t contacted by UNM until Friday. Like all the candidates, he flew to Las Vegas, Nev., for the interview with Krebs and the rest of the search committee.
Krebs said he held the interviews there because he was conducting a national search and Las Vegas is one of the few cities that offers direct flights from nearly every spot in the country. He downplayed the notion that economics played a factor in bringing in Neal’s successor, saying he was up front with every candidate about the compensation package UNM could afford.
In Weir, UNM gets a coach that some fans may not be happy with. He spent 10 years in Las Cruces, all but one of which as an assistant coach.
His only year in the big chair produced 28 wins and a trip to the NCAA Tournament, a run that included a 20-game winning streak and a split of the season series with the Lobos.
Winning the fans and students over is one of his priorities. He knows full well that the team’s attendance last season was the lowest per-game average in the history of The Pit, and getting the people back means winning them over one at a time.
“There’s going to be a lot of questions about me, I totally get it,” he said. “I was a one-year head coach, I’m coming from New Mexico State, I was a little bit of an unknown and I’m well aware of what I’m stepping into. The Greek philosopher Atticus once said, ‘Every doubter is a dreamer with a broken heart,’ and I think there’s some broken hearts around here that it’s my job to go out and pick up, and that’s all I’m going to do from now on.”