Matta shakes off rust to coach again
Thad Matta is a sophisticated gym rat at heart, so it was only a matter of time before the former Ohio State men's basketball coach found his way back to the bench. On Wednesday, he was formally introduced as the top Bulldog at Butler University.
It is the second marriage between Matta and Butler; they first tied the knot in 2000-2001 when as a first-time head coach Matta spent one season at his alma mater before leaving for Xavier. It will be interesting to watch how this second act plays out, considering how things ended at Ohio State.
Matta, 54, spent 13 seasons with the Buckeyes (2005-2017). Many were outstanding. A few were extraordinary. A couple were hard to watch. He won more games (337) than any of Ohio State's previous 14 coaches. The Buckeyes reached two Final Fours (2007, 2012) and won
four Big Ten Tournament titles and five Big Ten regular season championships. Under Matta, Ohio State collected three 30-win seasons, 12 20-win seasons and 18 NCAA Tournament wins. His teams won 78% of their games in March.
Then it went south. Matta went 38-29 his last two seasons, without an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. After the 2016-2017 season he and Ohio State parted ways. Officially, Matta was fired, but neither side provided exact details on what went down. The termination was described as a “mutually agreed upon dismissal.”
Conjecture is Matta had grown tired of coaching, but getting fired would allow him to collect $9 million for being terminated without cause. The university honored the final three years of his contract and supplied medical benefits, leading to speculation the deal was a thank you for a decade of excellent service and as compensation for Matta having powered through despite health issues.
My 2 cents? The man deserved his money, and, anyway, what's $9 million when OSU has plenty of booster friends to help provide a golden parachute?
More clear is Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith and Matta agreed the program was at a standstill. Smith mentioned a drop-off in recruiting. Matta mentioned how his balky back limited his ability to work the recruiting trail as hard as he wanted. Back surgery in 2007 led to a condition known as drop
foot, which causes his foot to drag on the ground. No fun traveling with that.
But there was something else at work, too. Matta has shared more than once how he grew tired of the college game’s external bull malarkey, including having to deal with AAU coaches and painfully putting up with complaining parents.
Just prior to his 2019 induction into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame — an honor he appreciated but described as “kind of a weird deal,” given his dismissal just two years earlier — Matta half-kiddingly said the book he always wanted to write was "You’re right, it’s my fault your son missed the jump shot."
He didn’t stop there. Asked if he might someday consider a return to coaching, he quipped, “Never say never, but it probably would be track, because when the parents want to cuss me out after the game I can say, ‘This is the time your son ran. I can’t help you on that.’ There were not shots, no touches or anything like that.”
Clearly, Matta was fed up with Mommy and Daddy sticking their noses into the way he coached their sons.
Which raises the question: Has any of that changed? No, but going five years without coaching has allowed Matta to recharge his battery and forget about the frustrating parts of coaching.
I get it. As a teen I worked two summers at Cedar Point serving obnoxious “animals,” as we called the amusement park customers. After the first summer I swore I would never work there again, but time has a way of smoothing rough edges. By the next spring I mostly remembered the fun times and recalled the previous summer not being so bad.
Matta re-enters a world of irritation, still with health issues, but a fish has to swim and Matta needs to coach. For one thing, he’s good at it (439-154 for his career), but also he is tired of being bored.
In 2019, Matta said he felt “90% less stress” being out of coaching, adding that he was staying busy doing “nothing.” But doing nothing gets old. At some point his taste for coaching returned, and spending last season as an associate athletic director for men’s basketball administration at Indiana further whet his appetite.
“I just punched my ticket for another hell of a ride,” he said Wednesday, adding that he “went to the edge” with other coaching opportunities but none felt right. Butler did.
Matta also addressed his health issues, stressing he would not have taken the Butler job if he was not physically capable.
“I’m not going to die,” he said. “My foot doesn’t work. That’s it. I am ready to go.”
Matta returning to the Big East private school presents another interesting tie to Ohio State. Chris Holtmann coached there before replacing Matta in 2017. Undoubtedly, there will be comparisons between the two — just one here: both are high-integrity coaches who refuse to even come close to bending the rules — but for now it’s just good to see Matta back on the bench where he belongs. roller@dispatch.com @rollercd