Photo from LIU Athletics

Word has just come in, Coach Jack Perri from Long Island University has been fired. I don’t know Coach Perri AT ALL, never met him, never spoke on the phone.

His team won 20 games this year, their last 6 in conference play before losing by one point at home in the NEC playoffs. I am in New York and I didn’t hear or read anything about his kids getting in trouble.

Why did they get rid of him? He didn’t make the NCAA tournament.  

Of course, the coach prior, Jim Ferry, left LIU after making the NCAA tournament for more money and a bigger conference.  He too was let go this week.

They won’t be alone this week as the coaching carousel turns. The example is an important one.

As school administrators are deciding the fates of their coaches and committing significant money into their programs they must understand education is the next bubble to burst in the American economy.  Our eight year run of economic prosperity will not last forever and with television money drying up, Non-Power-5 schools should look to run leaner athletic programs.

Smart administrators need to treat their athletic programs as a hungry start-up would.  Invest more as results show.  Only wins are going to sell tickets.  Winning culture takes time.

The make the tournament or bust mentality is the epitome of short-sided thinking and will set the program and the University back.

It crushes the student-athlete experience.  How should the student-athletes interpret a win-at-all-costs mindset? It sends mixed messages to preach citizenship and academics to players and yet fire the coaches that deliver that.

LIU was a giant in college basketball in the 1960’s but everything has changed since then.  It’s in a one-bid NCAA league which is generally cyclical.  Since LIU last won the NEC, Mount St. Mary’s, FDU and Robert Morris all have won the conference tournament.  Perri had won the league in 2013.

Ferry lasted five years at Duquesne, a year less than his predecessor Ron Everhart and the same stint as the Coach prior, Danny Nee.

Ferry didn’t make the post-season.  Ferry wasn’t successful enough for Duquesne alumni to get excited about their basketball program.  He didn’t become a worse coach, one job to the next.  The reason why Duquesne isn’t winning in the Atlantic 10 has to do with more than the coach.  As with most losing programs, the problem often isn’t the coach, it’s something else; it’s in the wrong the league, too strict admission requirements compared to the rest of the conference, the administration, the facilities, the lack of history…you get the picture.

Coppin State fired Michael Grant after three seasons.  I never met Coach Grant and quite honestly don’t know that much about any of the programs in the M.E.A.C.  What I know is who’s paying for the program-Students.

Students at Coppin State are subsidizing the athletic program.  The Huffington Post indicated that nearly 12m of the athletic departments 17.2m budget comes from student fees.  Is this the best spend of the student’s money, firing the coach and hiring a new one?

Presidents and athletic directors have this inclination to throw money at their athletic programs as a way to appease alumni who want to have their five minutes of bragging of their school making the post-season.  That never works.  Now to cover the escalating athletic costs, TUITION RISES.

Change needs to come quickly in college athletics before there are no students left in respective Non-Power 5 schools to pay for it.