Donovan active in McCall’s hiring
It’s been a whirlwind week for new University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball coach Matt McCall.
The former University of Florida assistant was in a staff meeting last Wednesday when he received a call from UTC athletic director David Blackburn. They decided to meet in Atlanta on Thursday, so McCall arrived in Atlanta at 2 in the morning for a meeting at 8 a.m. about the Mocs’ vacant head coaching job.
After that meeting, McCall met Florida head coach Billy Donovan in St. Louis to do an in-home visit with a recruit, which was followed by a trip to Nashville for another in-home visit with a potential recruit.
He flew home Thursday night — arriving at midnight — only to have to turn around the next day, hop a plan in Orlando and meet a recruit in Dallas.
Two days later — Sunday around noon — he found out he was going to get the job at UTC.
One of the most instrumental people in him getting that position was Donovan, who gave him his start as an 18-year-old college freshman wanting to be a Gators manager. McCall spent six seasons on the Florida staff before moving to Florida Atlantic as a full-fledged assistant in 2008. He returned to Florida as an assistant in 2011.
“When I was an assistant at Florida Atlantic, Billy called me two times a week just to check in,” McCall said Monday. “It was my first assistant job, I wasn’t making much money and just trying to make ends meet left and right, so I was having to do things and be creative. I’d had other opportunities that would make more money, but he told me to trust him — that when he had a spot available at Florida, that he ‘will hire’ me.”
McCall said that when Blackburn reached out to Donovan, the Gator head coach’s eyes “lit up.” That could be in part due to Donovan’s knowledge of the Mocs program from his time as Marshall’s coach when the Thundering Herd were a part of the Southern Conference.
“He told me that this was an opportunity that, if I could get it, I couldn’t pass up,” McCall said. “His stamp of approval meant a lot to me.”
The 33- year- old McCall referred to Donovan numerous times during the 90 minutes he was available to the fans and the media. Donovan, in turn, said he has complete confidence in what McCall can and will do in Chattanooga.
“Matt has done a tremendous job for the University of Florida, and he will be deeply missed,” Donovan said in UTC’s release announcing McCall’s hiring. “I knew it would take a special situation for Matt to leave, and
without question, Chattanooga is a great opportunity. The Mocs are getting a great coach and an even better person. Matt will do a tremendous job.”
When Blackburn called him to offer McCall the job, Donovan grabbed the phone out of McCall’s hand and started talking to UTC’s AD and vice chancellor. Later when McCall was on his way to the airport, Donovan was calling and texting him, and once he landed in Chattanooga, he had two messages from Donovan that said, “Call me.”
The Florida coach was so excited for McCall that he tried to start crafting the new Moc head coach’s first staff, saying, “OK, we need to get this guy.. and this guy…”
“He’s not pushing me anywhere unless he’s 100 percent comfortable,” McCall said. “I’ve had other job opportunities, but each time Billy had question marks, but at no point in time did he have a question mark about this job, and to me that meant a lot.
“I’m sure that during the weekend when David was trying to work through things and figure out who he wanted to hire that Coach called him three or four times, because he wanted to know what was going on because of how excited he was for this opportunity.
“I told him that his phone was definitely going to be ringing for the next 10 years.”
From the way it sounds, McCall’s might be ringing just as much.
Bopp, Gash join UTC staff
Scout.com’s Evan Daniels first reported that McCall is hiring former Virginia Commonwealth director of operations Jesse Bopp for his first staff, as well as former Florida video coordinator Peter Gash — reports that were later confirmed by a source to the Times Free Press.
Both have Florida connections.
Bopp spent the 200809 season at Florida as a graduate assistant and went to VCU as graduate manager the following season. He spent three years as the head basketball coach at Vermont Academy before returning to VCU the past two seasons.
Gash’s career started at NCAA Division II Lynn University in Florida as a student assistant. In 2007, he became the video coordinator at La Salle for a season; he was a graduate assistant at Indiana the following season.
He then was director of basketball operations at Florida Atlantic for five seasons before becoming the video coordinator at Florida last August.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress. com. Follow him at twitter. com/genehenleytfp.