IN SPORTS: LODI’S SHOUP RULES THE HOOP
Nathan Shoup can still remember the early days of playing basketball.
The Lodi High boys basketball player, a 6-foot-4 senior center, had some big pre-season games last week. He scored 14 points in the Flames’ 72-67 win over Laguna Creek at The Inferno on Friday.
In a Dec. 17 game, also at The Inferno, against area squad and defending Sierra Valley Conference champion Liberty Ranch, Shoup scored a team-high 18 points. Liberty Ranch, which also played for the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV title game last winter, escaped The Inferno with a 77-71 win over Lodi (5-7).
“We’ve been playing unselfish,” said Shoup of this year’s team. “We facilitate the ball. We do all of the little things right because when we do the little things right, we get the little things done. That’s when the big things happen. Just doing the little things and helping each other succeed throughout the game. Practice is helping us become successful.”
Shoup feels that this year’s team has a lot of workhorses who are working hard in practices that transition into games. That includes working on the little things in the game — from establishing the extra passes on offense in moving the ball or forcing opponents in turnovers on defense.
“We all enjoy working hard,” Shoup said. “That is the identity of Lodi basketball: We all work hard. Last year’s team had some amazing athletes in Jaylin Reed and Marcell Roberts. But if it’s clean or dirty, we get it done. I think the best thing about this year’s team is that we go in with the mind-set of we have to fight to get the win.”
Shoup credits former Lodi High boys basketball head coach Dave Nutting into establishing the mind-set of future players. In 14 seasons, Nutting, who stepped down after the 2017-18 season, and his Lodi squads won six league titles and earning section playoff berths. Nutting, 58, died of cancer on Dec. 7.
“Coach Nutting was such a pivotal figure in the program,” said Shoup of Nutting. “He shaped it into the identity of a hard-working team at Lodi.”
Shoup is averaging an even 9.0 points per game. Junior forward Isaac Bishop leads the team in scoring with 15.7 points per game and senior guard Logan Stout second at 10.2 points per game.
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The road to the top — Day’s pathway to the top job is not an outlier. All four coaches leading teams into the playoff this month were promoted from within their programs.
LSU removed the interim tag from Ed Orgeron after he took over following Les Miles’ firing in 2016. Oklahoma elevated Lincoln Riley, its hot-shot offensive coordinator, when Bob Stoops retired the following year.
The coach pitted against Day in the semifinals in the Fiesta Bowl is Dabo Swinney, a forerunner of a series of promotions.
Since taking the permanent job a decade ago, Swinney has built Clemson into a modern juggernaut, capturing two of the past three national championships and winning 28 straight games, a testament to the level of success possible from an internal hire.
“It’s just a good way to do it,” former Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips said. “You don’t have to spend a gazillion dollars to go out and find somebody if you got a good, solid program. You can work within that program.”
In interviews with The Dispatch, athletic directors who promoted assistants to head coaches said they benefited from up-close observation.
When Phillips hired Swinney after his interim stint in 2008, certain instances struck him.
Though Swinney was a wide receivers coach for the Tigers, he knew everyone on the team, and many players visited him in his office at the team’s facility. It looked like a gathering place. Phillips considered it as evidence of a magnetic leader.
“There was something about Dabo that attracted these players to just come in and talk with him, not necessarily about football,” Phillips said. “He had such a relationship with players at all positions.”
Had they not shared a workspace, Phillips never would have noticed.
He furthered watched Swinney charm boosters at Clemson Club gatherings across South Carolina and be ruthless enough to make critical decisions for the program to improve. On the same day that he was named interim coach, Swinney fired offensive coordinator Rob Spence.
The events turned Phillips into a firm believer.
Smith valued similar firsthand assessments as he watched Day inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center or at Ohio Stadium.
In his first game as the Buckeyes’ acting head coach in 2018, Day made his biggest impression.
He looked calm each time TV cameras captured a glimpse of him, a sideline demeanor that Smith admired.
“Obviously, he’s the play-caller, so he’s got to be cerebral,” Smith said, “but he doesn’t yell at players.”
The Buckeyes also tallied 77 points against Oregon State in an onslaught, piling on three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
It was an unrelenting approach that allowed Day to gain even more favor.
“Your players want to be aggressive,” Smith said. “I really think players love to connect with a culture and environment where you’re going to get after it. And if you demonstrate that as a leader, players gravitate to that.”
Cashing in — In an era of skyrocketing salaries in college football, with schools on the hook for paying coaches multimillions of dollars each season, familiarity with candidates has become valued by administrators.
A lot of money is on the line, including hefty buyout payments, if the hires don’t pan out.
“A lot of athletic directors are rethinking how they should be doing things, betting more on a guy that they know who is a good leader,” said Scott Roussel, president of FootballScoop.com, a website that covers the coaching industry.
The salaries for promoted assistants are also often lower, at least in the early goings.
In their first full seasons in 2017, Orgeron’s LSU salary was $3.5 million and Riley’s compensation was $3.1 million at Oklahoma.
By comparison, Tom Herman, who was hired by Texas during the same offseason hiring cycle and was widely seen as a top upand-coming coach after two successful seasons at Houston, made significantly more at $5.25 million.
Riley has since been given a sizable raise.