Resume Talk

Over the last couple weeks, we here at TGM have been planning on putting together a Bob Williams resume comparison. Today was the perfect day to unleash such a post. TGM had a job interview today. Today is Super Tuesday where every political candidate is doing his job to carve the resume of his opponent into misleading statements that don't paint the whole picture. One of the best Super Bowl commercials, in our humble opinion, involved a job interview:




Don't worry though, we here at TGM want to give you the truth and nothing but the truth regarding Coach Williams and his resume.

Before we go into the resume talk, I wanted to point out how our highly scientific study worked. As you can see from the charts below, we worked hard on this project and came to some conclusions. However, with 300+ Division I basketball coaches, it was simply too much for us to go through every program and look at each coach's experience. What we did do was try to take a sampling of coaches that we could think of (and who would make a representative sample) in the Division I ranks. Once we selected our coaches, we compared their resume to that of Bob Williams and we've noticed a trend (we think).



In total, we sampled 8 coaches, including Bob Williams. We couldn't help but include his namesakes in the study, Roy Williams and Gary Williams. We included Mark Few because we thought it would be good to get a successful mid-major coach in there. We included Kelvin Sampson because he's a middle of the road coach (but a Hall of Famer at breaking the recruiting rules), his teams are usually good and not horrible. John Beilein is included because he's been around at a couple programs. Finally, Frank Martin and Keno Davis were included because they are first year coaches.

Our conclusion: While the coaches in this list have had varying degrees of success, one point really stood out to us. With the exception of Kelvin Sampson, all of the coaches on this list had a good amount of Division I assistant coaching experience or head coaches at a low-major Division I program before ascending to the throne of Head Coach.

Each coach's experience is documented below for you to take a look at. However, the one thing that really sticks out from Bob's resume is that he has two years of Division I assistant coaching experience, among his many years of coaching. While I'm sure it's not a pre-requisite for success, it certainly appears that spending some time at the Division I level, as an assistant or low-major head coach makes a difference. I am aware that if we went through every Division I coach we could probably find some successful ones with a Bob-type resume.

Roy Williams was an assistant coach (all at UNC) for 10 years before he left to coach Kansas. Gary Williams spent 6 years as an assistant coach (Lafayette and BC), 4 years as a low-major coach at American before moving onto the head coaching position at Boston College. Mark Few spent 1 season as a graduate assistant at Gonzaga and 8 as an assistant coach before getting Gonzaga's Head Coaching position. Kelvin Sampson spent 1 year as Michigan State Graduate Assistant, 5 years at the NAIA level, and 2 seasons as an assistant coach (Washington State) before becoming Washington State's head coach. John Beilein spent 8 seasons at the Division II level, 4 years as a head coach at a low-major (Canisius) and 4 years at a mid-major (Richmond) before becoming West Virginia's Head Coach. Frank Martin spent 7 seasons as an Assistant Coach (Northeastern, Cincinnati, K-State) before becoming Kansas State's Head Coach. Lastly, Keno Davis spent 16 years as a Division I assistant coach (Iowa, Southern Indiana, Southeast Missouri St., and Drake) before becoming the Drake Head Coach.

Just counting graduate assistant and division I assistant coaching years for the sample group, there is a total of 51 years experience for an average of 7.29 years spent as a Division I assistant. Adding Bob's two years gives us 53 years experience for 6.63 years of Division I experience. Clearly, Beilein and Sampson are the exception to the rules here. Yet, one thing remains clear, Bob's 2 years pale in comparison to the average.

If we add the low-major label into the mix, the experience comes up to 59 total. Using the sample's, that's good for an average of 8.43 years of experience before landing a mid-major or major conference head coaching job. Adding Bob into the mix drops the experience down to 7.38 years of experience before taking over a mid-major/major conference job. Again, Bob's experience is much smaller than the rest of the coaches.

One of the assumptions we made between low-major and mid-major was that there really was primarily major conference and low-conference basketball at Division I during the time that most of these coaches were coming up. Beilein's years at Richmond were clearly considered mid-major.

What does this show? Our scientific study doesn't prove that you need ample Division I experience to succeed as a coach at this level, but I think it suggests that there is at least a correlation.

This isn't Bob's fault. Obviously, if he had better opportunities to coach elsewhere, he probably would have taken them. Coaching is a fraternity, as you can see by the fact that Roy Williams first NCAA job was coaching at UNC, where he played. We realized it's not easy to just send in an application and get hired at a major Division I basketball school. We've been known to give Bob a hard time on this site and we still have our differences with him, but we think this falls solely on the administration and the AD, Gary Cunningham. While they probably did their due diligence, it doesn't appear that they looked to outside programs to see what types of experience a successful head coach has. There are going to be exceptions to every rule, and it's obvious that Bob isn't the exception. When UCSB hires another coach, it appears, in our opinion, that the best candidate for the job is someone with at least 8 years of Division I assistant coaching experience.

Hiring a coach solely on the basis that he had a couple of successful Division II seasons should not be enough (I don't blame Bob for taking the UCSB job). Giving a D2 coach a D1 job solely on his performance at a different level strikes me as irrational. You see it happen every year at the end of basketball season, though; the coach who got his team into the second weekend of the NCAA tournament becomes a hot commodity, whether or not his record warrants it. It looks like UCSB was trying to make a splash without overpaying.

To bring up a useful analogy, think about the Golden State Warriors first round draft pick from a couple years ago, Patrick O'Bryant. He was an unknown commodity until the Bradley Braves upset Pittsburgh in the NCAA Tournament. All of a sudden Patrick O'Bryant was going to be the next big thing. Patrick was no dumb ass, he capitalized on the irrational exuberance and parlayed that into some money. I didn't think any team would be dumb enough to give this guy a guaranteed first round contract solely on his size and NCAA performance, but the Warriors did. Consequently, they wasted a draft pick and their money.

Finally, while writing this, one interesting thought occurred to me. Maybe Bob is using UCSB. Maybe he's waiting for that one tournament run with a couple of victories. He can get out of dodge and leave the damage at UCSB. Maybe UCSB is Bob's experience while he positions himself for a big money job, just maybe. If that's the case, then we're all suckas and Bob is a friggin' genius.

Bob Williams:

1975-1976: San Lorenzo Valley HS, Assistant Coach
1976-1978: Santa Cruz HS, JV Coach
1978-1979: Cabrillo CC, assistant coach
1979-1980: Lincoln HS, Head Coach
1980-1983: Cabrillo CC, Head Coach
1983-1988: Menlo College
1988-1990: Pepperdine, Assistant
1990-1998: UC Davis, Head Coach
1998-Present: UCSB, Head Coach

Roy Williams:

1973-1978: Owens HS
1978-1988: North Carolina, Asst. Coach
1988-2003: KU Head Coach
2003-Present: Head Coach at UNC

Gary Williams:

1969-1970: Woodrow Wilson HS Assistant coach
1970-1972: Woodrow Wilson HS Head coach
1972-1977: Lafayette assistant coach
1977-1978: BC assistant coach
1978-1982: American Head Coach
1982-1986: BC Head Coach
1986-1989: Ohio State
1989-present: Maryland

Mark Few:

1983-1986: Creswell HS, unpaid assistant
1986-1988: Creswell HS, assistant
1988-1989: Sheldon HS, assistant
1989-1990 : Gonzaga, Graduate Assistant
1991-1999: Gonzaga, Assistant
1999-Present: Gonzaga, Head Coach

Kelvin Sampson:

1979-1980: Michigan State, Grad. Asst.
1980-1981: Montana Tech, Asst. Coach
1981-1985: Montana Tech, HC
1985-1987: Washington State, Asst. Coach
1987-1994: Washington State, HC
1994-2006: Oklahoma, HC
2006-Present: Indiana, HC

John Beilein:

1979-1982: Erie CC, Head Coach
1983: Nazareth, HC
1984-1992: LeMoyne, HC
1993-1997: Canisius, HC
1998-2002: Richmond, HC
2003-2007: West Virginia, HC
2007-Present: Michigan, HC

Frank Martin:

1985-1993: Miami HS, Asst. Coach
1993-1995: North Miami HS, HC
1995-1998: Miami HS, HC
1999-2000: Booker T Washington HS, HC
2000-2004: Northeastern, Asst. Coach
2004-2006: Cincinnati, Asst. Coach
2006-2007: Kansas State, Asst. Coach
2007-Present: Kansas State, HC

Keno Davis:

1991-1995: Iowa, Asst. Coach
1995-1997: Southern Indiana, Asst. Coach
1997-2003: Southeast Missouri St., Asst. Coach
2003-2007: Drake, Asst. Coach
2007-Present: Drake, HC