More people will be watching when OU's next men's basketball coach is hired.
Joe Castiglione thinks outside the box when it comes to basketball hirings.
OU athletic director Joe Castiglione thinks outside the box when it comes to basketball hirings. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman
And I don't even mean a 31-year-old Jeff Capel , a stealth candidate by any description.
Reports continue to surface that Joe C. wanted to hire Geno Auriemma five years ago and turned to Capel only when the Connecticut women's coach backed out. ESPN 's Andy Katz reported it five years ago, and East Coast media have revived the story in recent weeks.
Auriemma would have been a disastrous choice, and not just because of the gender flip. An abrasive, arrogant Easterner comes to Norman ? A coach who doesn't like to share the spotlight comes to a campus that employs Bob Stoops ?
So Auriemma did us all a favor. But Castiglione probably could have pulled off the hiring five years ago.
Not now. Joe C. will make this next hire, but not carte blanche. The eventual fall of the Capel regime means university administrators are paying more attention to this coaching search. Will ask more questions and demand more assurances from Castiglione this time.
That stems as much from the NCAA investigation as it does the back-to-back losing seasons.
So another wild card? A 31-year-old or a women's coach or 70-year-old Larry Brown , who some say wouldn't mind a college gig?
Joe C. best be prepared to defend his choice. There will be no rubber stamp.
I like the new order of coaching hires on most campuses. The athletic director is a one-man search committee, if not a one-man selection committee.
That's far better than the old conglomeration of regents, boosters, students, former players and whoever else squeezes into the board room.
And the solo style works great until there's a problem. Then people in power start asking questions.
Capel was not a disaster. Capel was a more-than-effective coach, and then he wasn't, so he was replaced.
Castiglione gets to make this choice, too, but this time, more people are paying attention.
That makes another stealth candidate less likely.
I asked Joe C. on Monday if he would consider a women's coach. Not necessarily a female coach, but a women's coach.
“I'm just going to go back to the best fit and best person for our job,” Castiglione said. “That's what we've always considered.”
He had a straight face but a slight grin. So I took no clues from that.
But I feel better, because out in Connecticut, Auriemma is talking like he's less enamored with the challenge of coaching men.
“When I see what's going on out there, those two or three things that drive me crazy on my team, multiply that by 10,” Auriemma told Graham Bensinger of Yahoo! Sports . “And you've got to deal with that stuff every day on the men's side.
“So I don't know that I would want to put myself through that at this point of my life. When I was younger, felt more invulnerable, I would have tried it.”
Good. Now we've got two lines of defense to keep Auriemma out of Norman.
He doesn't want the job, and OU brass won't let Castiglione think too far outside the box.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at (405) 760-8080 or at btramel@opubco.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok.com/berrytramel.
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