Unanswered prayer
Boynton becomes head coach a year later than he thought
M ike Boynton walked into the interview confident. The basketball program was thriving, excitement abounded and he had been there from the start. So when Brad Underwood left for the other side of the fence, why wouldn’t Boynton get the job?
Seemed automatic to him.
Then Stephen F. Austin hired Kyle Keller.
So a year later, with Underwood gone again, Boynton walked into a Karsten Creek lodge Thursday with no pretense that he was the favorite for a job much more prestigious than what he sought in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Boynton walked out the same. Hopeful, but not self-assured. Nowhere near convinced that he would be asked to stay in Stillwater.
But the men who remained in that lodge, led by OSU athletic director Mike Holder, were starting to believe they had just talked to their next head coach.
And little more than 24 hours later, a son of Brooklyn, a graduate of South Carolina, a protégé of Underwood, was named to fill the shoes of Eddie Sutton and Henry Iba.
How did this happen? How did a stealth candidate like Boynton win the job so quickly and decisively? Boynton was so unknown that Robert Allen, Mr. OSU, basically introduced himself to Boynton on Saturday morning, and Boynton’s been on campus a year.
“We just looked for the best long-term,” said Holder. “A leader, a teacher, a differencemaker. I think that’s what we got in Mike. He’s going to fill that role in spades.”
It’s a risk. A major risk. Most major programs don’t hire assistants. They go to the Stephen F. Austins and UMasses for their head coaches. That’s where OSU got its two most recent head coaches. OU has gone to UNLV, Virginia Commonwealth, Washington State and Lamar for the Sooners’ most four recent head coaches.
For good reason. Head coaches are a known commodity. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Assistant coaches haven’t produced. Some head coaches have.
Among Big 12 schools, the success rate of assistant coaches-turnedhead coaches is about 36 percent. For every Frank Martin at Kansas State, there are three Pat Knights and Sean Suttons and Neil Doughertys.
Meanwhile, hiring a head coach works out better than 50 percent of the time, by my calculations.
Hiring a head coach is the safe thing to do. But Holder, who will be criticized for hiring on the cheap, didn’t go safe.
“I think it takes some intestinal fortitude to hire someone that’s not going to be necessarily the most popular thing in the press conference,” Holder said. He knows that since Underwood’s abrupt departure to Illinois, negativity has swelled over OSU basketball. Holder likened it to the cascades of Niagara Falls. The Cowboys were in desperate need of a counter.
“One tempting way to do that was someone who immediately would be accepted by the fan base,” Holder said. “That’s why people hire head coaches. They’ve done what you envision or dream about for our basketball program. But the emphasis should be on hiring the best coach available.”
Holder said the low salary demands of a candidate like Boynton had nothing to do with the decision. OSU wasn’t going to pay Underwood the $3 million a year he got from Illinois, but Holder started out his Underwood negotiations at $2 million and was prepared to go higher.
One side benefit of getting a lower-priced head coach: more money for assistant coaches, which could help Boynton retain Underwood’s staff and thus OSU’s wellrespected recruiting class. Keeping the Underwood band together, players and coaches, even sans Underwood, was not a bad thing in Holder’s eyes.
“Kudos to Brad Underwood, but the most valuable thing he did for us long-term was surround us with quality people,” Holder said. “The people he brought in, the way he put his arms around the good people we already had in basketball, that put us in a great place to have legitimate choices to turn to for the long-term solution.”
Which Holder says he’s found in Boynton.
Must have been one heck of an interview. Boynton focused on leadership when presenting his case.
“It’s simple to me, and it’s always been this way,” Boynton told a group of writers on Saturday morning, “coaching in my opinion is first and foremost about leadership. Leadership means that you can get people to believe things that maybe they wouldn’t have otherwise, that you can inspire people to think that they can do things that maybe they didn’t think they could on their own and that you can get people to know you care about them so much that they’ll allow you to push them to a point where they can go.
“So I believe I was able to convey that I’ve been a leader all my life, every team I’ve played for … I’ve been a leader of most of the staffs. Very outspoken at meetings. Very proactive in how I work with our players. I’ve grown into this role all my life.”
You’re going to like Boynton, OSU fans, even if you’re predisposed to reject Holder’s ideas. Boynton has a Wayman Tisdale smile. He’s personable, smart, confident and grateful.
“You never know,” Boynton said. “I didn’t think there was any chance Iwasn’t getting the Stephen F. Austin job last year. Until I got the phone call that I wasn’t.”
Then came a phone call Friday from a different school that is taking a big risk but could have a big reward.