Lobos football begins spring training full of hope
Lobos play Colorado State tonight before next week’s Mountain West Tournament
After he was handed his hat and told to pack his office, Paul Weir finally resurfaced Tuesday morning.
The outgoing coach of the University of New Mexico men’s basketball program hammered out a letter to Lobos fans and posted it to the team’s official Twitter account just a few hours before his team hit the road for its final regular season game.
The Lobos will play at Colorado State on Wednesday night, then return home to prepare for a play-in game March 10 at the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Las Vegas, Nev.
Weir and UNM reached an agreement Feb. 26 to end his tenure at the end of this season, his fourth at the helm. The agreement comes with a $490,000 buyout that also calls for UNM to pay New Mexico State $50,000 each of the next two years as part of Weir’s buyout to NMSU.
He left the Aggies in 2017 to take over at New Mexico.
The agreement similarly allows Weir to seek jobs other universities without surrendering the terms of the buyout, meaning he will receive nearly half a million dollars regardless of his employment status.
A source familiar with Weir’s statement said it went through multiple drafts. Broken into three long paragraphs, Weir thanks his players, supporters and those who helped him build a coaching career that is approaching two decades. He became a head coach for the first time in 2016 at New Mexico State, then took over at UNM a year later.
Weir was still in Albuquerque for at least part of the day Tuesday. He and the rest of the players and coaching staff had to report to the Tow Diehm Facility to get tested for COVID-19 prior to making the trip to Fort Collins, Colo.
He has been quiet since his dismissal was announced last weekend. Athletic director Eddie Nuñez said Tuesday that UNM has already begun a national search and added he hopes to have a replacement named in the next few weeks.
Weir was hired in April 2017 after the NCAA Tournament. Nuñez said he doesn’t anticipate this search taking that long.
Multiple media outlets have begun leaking names as potential candidates.
The Athletic, among others, mentioned Pacific head coach Damon Stoudamire, South Carolina’s Frank Martin, former Nebraska and Colorado State coach Tim Miles and former NBA player Mike Miller, the brother of former UNM assistant and current No. 2 guy at Texas Christian University, Ryan Miller.
It is expected that Nuñez will tap into one of three sources for his search: His connections to the Southeastern Conference, his connections to the Billy Donovan coaching tree and/or the connection to Tom Crean’s tree. Nuñez, of course, spent most of his career as an LSU administrator, played for Donovan at Florida and has ties to Crean during his time as a graduate assistant at Marquette.