UNCG Coach Mike Gaski Fired

Ovechtrick,

Just curious....What were the empty promises?

 

I would rather not get into my situation. Let's just say things were talked about and once I came back to talk to him it's as if we never spoke.

 

Excerpt from Chris Pollard (now head coach of Duke) on recruiting.....

“We absolutely want to recruit nationwide,” he said. “I do think there are some hotbeds where you have a great opportunity to find not only the type of baseball player you’re looking for, but also the type of student that you need. But we’re going to make sure we hit every part of the country to make sure we find guys. Certainly the Northeast is going to be important to us. Florida is going to be an important state for us. California and Texas. The one thing I mentioned in my interview is that I’ve got a lot of relationships in North Carolina and we’re not going to turn our back on North Carolina. We’re going to make sure if there’s a kid here who’s a good fit for Duke University that we go after him hard.”


You have to have national ties without losing sight of the talent in NC. I have a concern that the AD may be having a hard time getting the pay high enough to get that type of caliber coach (hence the delay in announcement). I'm going to bet it's a young coach that has been successful at a smaller school (D2, D3).

 

Any thoughts on Paul O'Neil from UNC-Pembroke or Matt McKay at Brevard as candidates. I know McKay has only been at Brevard for two years, but seems to have them going in the right direction and also has UNC ties. Also what type of job is Scott Forbes looking for?

 

UNCG fan...Duke absolutely HAS TO recruit nationally to succeed. Have you looked at the tuition of Duke? $53,905/yr including room and board. Since there are 11.7 scholarships for 27 players (not including 8 walk-on players) and you must receive at least 25% of a scholarship(in most cases that will be the max. a player ever sees), the basic math means a player must come up with $40,428. That already cuts down on the pool of students that will attend Duke. There are types of financial aid to pull from but some of the grants/loans must be repaid. The areas that Duke and Pollard say they must recruit such as the Northeast are already hotbeds for their recruiting and for their fanbase (just look at basketball). They absolutely must go national to pick the type of player they want in combination to the type of student they want. Stanford succeeds and so does Vandy, schools with equal if not more stringent education demands. Finding a player with the skills, financial means to play at Duke and make up the difference as well as the educational commitment means that Duke has to cast a larger net in order to get certain select students. But the fact that Pollard did this type of searching when he was a Davidson, I give them a good chance at succeeding.

UNCG as well as many of the other UNC system schools have an in-state Tuition of about 18K. 25% of that would leave about $13,500, somewhat easier pill to swallow when searching for grants/loans to make up the difference. Out-of-state students pay about 30K at UNCG and UNC system schools and with the 25% minimum scholarship that leaves about $23-24 a year. Makes it harder to attract the out-of-state student due to cost. This also pulls from the baseball budget and makes it financially harder to succeed.

Also, the Academic Progress Rate (APR) will play a major role in funding for the ball players. Duke has a high APR rating over the past few years due to the fact that the players stayed with the program and graduated. UNCG has not had a high rating and thusly, was penalized .87 of a scholarship due to players quitting the program, school and not finishing their college career. And by the way, this rating occurred over the teams "successful years" before your self-described D-3 players got in and wrecked Satan's career.

 

Recruiting

Good arguments, but I can only believe in what we achieved which was winning the SoCon, going to the NCAA's and winning more than 40 games in 2 seasons. We had west coast guys, midwest, NC, and Florida kids.

 

UNCG fan...I will give you kudos for your success. Now looking at the UNCG timetable, your time frame is around here...correct?:

1997* 45-17 .726 (NCAA bid and 0-2 in the regionals?)
1998 40-18 .690

Your whole time frame centers around success from 14-15 years ago. Based on what you have indicated, we should have strapped him to the ole Norfolk-Southern rail cars beside the campus and sent him somewhere a long time ago. Heck, based on your arguments and subsequent mediocre records, the D-2 and D-3 talent started coming in around 1999. Since 1999, the only team to finish better than 3rd was the 2011* team in 2nd place. (The asterisk is because they did it with substandard talent.) Everything else has been 4th, 5th or worse! They had talent from everywhere and still couldn't pull it out due to coaching technique and turnover due to management. Just compare the rosters to the records!

I applaud your "loyalty" to Satan and the fact that you definitely had success and team chemistry. It shows in your record. Everyone on those teams must've worn necklaces that had garlic and holy water vials on them. The fact is, if you haven't been around the program the last years then you have NO clue what you are talking about. The former AD let him coast in an good ole boy fashion and Kim Record held his feet to the fire. The time frame you are judging players on is this....you were somewhere between 18-22 yrs of age...the players now would have been 5 to 9 years of age. Things change. They never talked about any past success because it was never discussed by Satan ever. Hate to tell you that, but in their minds, y'all didn't exist. No tradition was ever discussed...ever!!!!

It sure would have been nice if you had ever showed up to the games and talked to the teams and given some of this positive mojo you espouse to. My guess is that the players would have NO CLUE what you are talking about based on their experiences. But like most of the former players, they never showed up due to the fact that they were never recognized as valued members of the baseball tradition. Maybe get a call to an alum game but how many after that? You would have just been in Satan's way! I don't care where the next coach gets his players, I just hope he's given time to develop his program into a success, bring the former alums back to support the program and instill confidence back into the boosters. In effect, do the things a REAL coach should have done over the last 14-15 years!

 

Even with no dog in the fight, this is a most entertaining thread.

 

Red Bear---I definitely agree!

 

2 summer prospect camp memories

I met Gaski on two occaisions ......strange bird. I spoke to him about USA Baeball and specifically a kid I knew on the team from Charlotte and he had no idea who the kid was....Not a fan of Showcase Ball......spoke down about it in his meeting with the kids....specifically called out 2 groups he did not like..... this was at his summer prospect camp. funny thing was on both occaisions(1 year apart) he vocally slammed Wake F for over recruiting to the kids ......suckering players to pay the $50k to come to Wake with promiss of being on team and then cutting them...Did like Asst Coach Russ Steinhorn alot but he left after that season......Dustin James also seemed to be a great guy