Editor's Note: I can't give this perspective, I wasn't a student during Seth's tenure. I appreciate all he did for Tech basketball, but I never felt that connection with him so many of you did. Sparach did, his words follow.
First, I want to state the obvious: the timing was...odd. I was of the opinion that the Athletic Department could have justified firing him at the end of this season, yet at the same time was not surprised when they pledged support. Considering the circumstances - starters being injured, the relative youth of this years squad - I felt that Seth had earned a "get-out-of-jail-free" card for last season.
My freshman year was Greenberg's second year at Tech. For all four seasons of undergrad, I got season tickets. I'll admit, as a freshman, the only reason I signed up for season tickets was to watch the competition (In high school, I loved college basketball, regardless of who was on the court; my family would get tickets to the NCAAs when they were held at the Meadowlands). After the first couple of games, I dropped that silly notion. Then we beat Duke, someone stole Zabian Dowdell's jersey, and basketball at Tech was no longer just something to pass the time during the gridiron off-season.
Tech made the Dance in 2007. I couldn't enjoy a minute of it. That semester I chose to participate in a study abroad. I think not being a part of that run - even if it was only 2 games - has shaped my opinion about the value of NCAA berths. The years that we can justifiably make a case for inclusion ALWAYS included some bone-headed loss. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Seth is amongst the leaders in wins against #1 teams over the past 4/5 years. Obviously, the team has been talented enough to beat elite competition. Most of the frustration has come with a listless efforts that have followed what should have been considered "breakout" victories.
Greenberg's ability to recruit raised the talent level at Blacksburg to heights we've never seen. He made Tech basketball relevant in one of the toughest basketball conferences in the nation. Yet at the same time, there was a ceiling that the team could never seem to be able to overcome.
Not gonna lie, I'm nervous about where this leaves us. I think there will be justified skepticism directed towards Weaver until a replacement is settled upon. Personally, I don't see how anyone out there - with the exception of Shaka Smart - is going to represent an upgrade at the position at this point in time.
Thanks Seth. Thanks for making hoops at Tech fun, thanks for keeping us on the edge of our seats, thanks for your demonstrative court side personality. You made a difference, that's for certain, and I think HokieNation will always appreciate the hard work and effort you put into this team.
Comments
Thanks Seth
Very well put. My freshman year was his first and it's been great to have the continuity in both football and basketball for all of these years. I have some great memories of the emotion he brought, the buzzer beaters (bad and good), the upsets of #1 teams, and the way we competed against the cream of the ACC. It will be a big change next year whoever comes in, but I think Hokie Nation is also looking forward to a breath of fresh air. Big ups to Seth and everything he did for Hokie Basketball and the Blacksburg community. Go Hokies!
I will never forget when we beat #1 Duke in 2011. That day ranks at the top of my VT sports memories, right up there with the comeback against Nebraska.
Excellent Contributions
Coach Greenberg worked tirelessly for nine years to build this program up from just about nothing. He took the team to its only Big East tournament bid, five NIT appearances, and an NCAA tournament appearance, including one win. How many of you thought you would see Virginia Tech in the NCAA tournament within five years of hiring Coach Greenberg? (Put your hand down, I know you didn't)
The effort and tenacity with which he approached this job is commendable, and I'll always remember the positive contributions he made to Virginia Tech. He made basketball in Blacksburg exciting again, in the midst of great football success no less. He brought in solid guys, and raised the bar around here. He lobbied for and helped get funding for a great new practice facility. Greenberg did great things for the program, but his relationship on a personal level with Weaver and other athletics staff members seems to be what led to this decision.
I have had several interactions with Coach Greenberg in my position with Tech Talk Live, and he was a generally nice guy, though he could sometimes be a bit abrasive.
I deeply respect the job that he did at Virginia Tech: I grew up watching Hokie basketball as he coached the team. And I thought that the team he had assembled for next season could have been quite good. But that wasn't the issue that led to this decision. The personal relationship (or lack thereof) with Weaver and the strained relations with departed assistants seems to be what the ultimate breaking point was.
I wish Coach Greenberg all the best as he and his family move on from Virginia Tech, and I thank him for the great work he did for nine years as a Hokie.
Best Tweet about the Greenberg Firing
From Stephen Curry to his brother Seth, both snubbed by Seth Greenberg.
And if Dell coaches, that'd be pretty sweet.
well that certainly would sell some tix
but has dell ever coached at any level?
I looked that Up
According to the best source in the world Wikipedia, Dell was hired as an assistant coach of the Charlotte Bobcats in 2007, but quit before the season began. That right there shows he's pretty smart.
Ice Cold
Not offering Del's kids scholarships was the wrong move. Probably the first (Stephen) mistake by Greenberg. Whether it's fair or not, Beamer got us as fans used to legacies coming to Tech. To make things worse we had to watch Stephen single-handedly win games for Davidson in the dance and wonder, "What if?"
I'm also a Seth fan, so its hard to be objective. I was a student during both the Stokes and Greenberg years, and it's safe to say that Seth changed our program. He made the students care about hoops again, he brought in exciting players, and he just made basketball fun again. I don't think even Coach Beamer interacted and embraced the students the way Coach Greenberg did. Along the way, our team managed to knock off the #1 team in the country multiple times, and usually played our best games against Dook. I truly wish him nothing but success in the future.
That being said, this was such an un-Weaver-like move that it's pretty apparent that the two truly did not get along towards the end. Like most people, I'm left cautiously optomistic, but also fairly nervous about the future.
I think Seth earned the benefit of the doubt for one more season, but whats done is done. My hope is that donors won't start withholding money or anything like that. As popular or un-popular as this move by Weaver was, he is generally regarded as one of the best AD's in the country, so I'm going to trust him to make the best move for the future of our program.
Good read. I wish we'd handled the firing differently, but I'm ready to move forward. *Glances over to Richmond*
*glances back*
It seems like
this is one of those relationships kind of like that girl you dated that was nice, you got along ok, had a couple of tiffs with, but for the most part, it was ok. You look around and think, well, maybe it could be better. You like those funny faces she makes...the cooking was ok....but she just doesn't make things quite the way you want. After a while, you just decide to break up because it just leaves you kind of....blah. You can't really say anything too bad about her, and you wish her well, and move on.
Thanks Seth, and godspeed.
I'm grateful
but I can't say I particularly thought he was a good fit for a coach at Virginia Tech.
Maybe this is because I heard murmurs within the athletic dept from other coaches and staff members about his abrasive nature, or his lack of attempts to be a apart of the AD community (and it IS a community..Weaver's family aspect was spot on). Maybe it's because my room mate was head manager of the ball team and bashed him constantly. I'm biased in that regard. Whatever.
My problem was where the team was headed. Sure, he started off fantastically. And my freshman year was also his 2nd year there. And I swear, if one person responds (THEN YOU DONT KNOW HOW BAD IT WAS YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO UNDERSTAND!Q!!!11111) then I will fight you. I can read a W-L column and understand bad attendance numbers as bad as the rest. This is why the "we're better than we used to be!" argument is crap.
Being just fine with being "better than we used to be" is not becoming of an Athletic Department that wants victories and championships. Joining the ACC, we focused on improving Olympic sports and basketball. Basketball has improved from 2003, sure....but it's 2012 now. 9 years isn't necessarily a promising trajectory when hoping to become at the top of a recently down ACC.
People blame injuries, and I'll admit that's some bad luck, but what would have happened if so many players and coaches didn't leave? The programs biggest problem was consistency. We weren't consistent in our performance week to week. Well, consistency on the field of play starts with consistency in the front office, and the locker room. Any coach and athlete will tell you that a healthy locker room is a healthy team.
I'm so thankful for some of the things I witnessed there. Beating Duke and UNC, being on the cusp of the dance is even a little fun sometimes. The sense of victimization, however, isn't. After so many years in an AD that gave him so many resources, it should never had been in the committees hands. Had be continued his upwards trajectory, I'd be in his corner all the way. He didn't, Weaver is a business man, and clearly the relationship was strained. Seth ultimately earned this, as all employees that don't quite meet expectations.
As far as how it was handled? I agree, Seth could have been notified before Weaver announced the press conference. But I'm of the believe that we have NO IDEA how things work in there. We can sit here and speculate how it was handled, and what let to the decision...but we simply don't know. Maybe a big name coach came into town and Weaver had to jump on the opportunity to get this news out ASAP...maybe other circumstances were at work. I think Seth should have known as soon as the decision was finalized, but feel incredibly sad for him???? No.
The guy walks with a buyout of 300,000 a year, and the promise to match any salary he may receive as another job. National media loves him, and I'm sure he'll land on his feet. I won't be shedding any tears, that's for certain.
After all of this, I think we'll land on our feet too. We get a whole new staff, and if there's anything basketball has taught us, it's that a young nobody coach can do amazing things. I get kind of pissed when I hear everyone and their pessimism about how we can't find anyone better than Seth. We can't?? Then let's just cut the whole damn program. It's an ACC school with a rabid fan base, and athletes here are treated VERY VERY well. It may not be the name you want, but hey, we found Greenberg 9 years ago right? Maybe this time we make some tweaks, find one than can continually improve, and we may be just fine.
Bravo
This is as honest as of a take on the situation that I've read, and that's not even considering the insider perspective.
BIN-FUCKING-GO
I want to kiss you on the mouth for this.
x2
I want to kiss you on the mouth for this.
Mark Byington for head coach!
you guys
are really starting to worry me with this "kiss you on the mouth" shit .. ugh
i'm not a huge bball fan but even from a half-assed bball fan like me, three things were very obvious to me:
1. greenberg was not a popular person, by words and actions of insiders, staff, colleagues, and players.
2. regardless of what he's done (which isn't THAT much considering he had almost a decade to do it in), the program has peaked with him as coach .. and was headed in the wrong direction
3. the way the whole firing was handled, from timing (mid-april) to leaking before greenberg was notified .. was pretty amateurish for a d-1 athletic director. it is honestly time for weaver to go as well. there is no good reason for him to stay any longer ... period
Gonna have to say I disagree with that
Every coach I know in that athletic department loves Weaver, and my old coach has expressed worry to me multiple times that Weaver wont be there soon. Weaver did that on purpose...and I bet he was happy to.
There are those that work in the athletic dept that are happy to see him finally get his just desserts. As an athletic director: you've got to make your employees happy too. Outsiders will stop caring when/if we start winning again.
It should be said that I've got a serious love for Jim Weaver.... he has one PR fo paux and we call for his head? The same guy that back-doored us into the ACC, keeps up in the black every year (on of the few schools to do so), and has improved every sport (EXCEPT BASKETBALL) since we joined the ACC, should be gone for firing this guy? He fired a guy that created a lot of tension in the athletic department. Not just between him and Weaver, but for everyone. But to say there's no reason for him to be there anymore? Come on.
Seth called other coaches out in the ACC for cheating, yelled at the selection committee. Believe me that other coaches in the nation see this whole firing through a different perspective, and coaches talk. This will not scare anyone away from wanting this job. And it's been 23 1/2 hours since the press conference. Everyone needs to chill out with their doomsday predictions. He hasn't steered us wrong yet. Let him do his job.
I can't agree with many of these statements regarding Weaver
It took a lot more than Jim Weaver to get Virginia Tech into the ACC (Mark Warner was by far the most influential person on that it appears). I'm sure he played a part, but I find it hard to believe that any AD worth a lick wouldn't have been trying the same thing.
As for being in the black, what does that even mean to most of us? While I fully agree that athletics budgets have gotten entirely out of control, college athletics are a basically marketing expense for the school these days. What's the difference between Virginia Tech and a school operating in the red in athletics? Do our academics suffer less financial burden as a result? Honestly I don't know the answers to these questions.
Finally, the improvements across our sports programs arguably has as much to do with the stability of ACC membership as anything. Women's basketball went from respectable to beyond horrible under Weaver. Every other sport that I can think of had to play in a far inferior conference. Despite being in one of the top conferences in many non-rev sports now, we've failed to even seemingly conduct a nationwide coaching search for recent openings. We've promoted assistants in women's lax, women's basketball, and both soccer programs. I'm not saying these people were wrong or won't succeed at the job, but there's an established pattern of Weaver going with the cheap, familiar route rather than necessarily looking for the best coach. So maybe he hasn't "steered us wrong yet," but I'm not sold that he's steered us as well as he could have in more than a few situations.
Being in the black is huge. For one, it means we can actually have sports like women's lax. Maryland just recently cancelled like 4 sports programs. Second, the athletic department gives a pretty sizable donation to the university every year. This wouldn't be possible if Weaver was trying to scrape together enough money to fund a women's sport that draws 50 fans per year. As for the athletic department being a marketing expense for the school, a lot of people don't realize that the athletic department is 100% privately funded. NO money from the university goes towards it.
Also, it wasn't that long ago that Lane Stadium had wooden bleachers in the south endzone...
Also
I'm totally ok with mouth kisses, You Guys.
I remember
hearing comments on the NCAA tournament selection shows about how Seth hadn't endeared himself to the selection committee with his comments, which might have influenced a couple of VT's non-selections. So let's move on, hope that Weaver gets his AD-family-type guy, and we start the rebuilding process. And maybe we get to see Seth as a talking-head on the four letter or CBS.
seth
had a good run, 9 yrs and elevated the program.
that said his time was up. if you are going to be an ass to your coaches, admin, players and other league coaches, you better f'ng win .. he didnt' win enough. chased off coaches, almost chased off players and wouldn't change.
the names i am hearing that are giving a listen or even showing interest leave me optimistic that tech will be fine and most have proven to be better at x's and o's.
i think he conned a lot of people into thinking he was better than he was when it was all said and done. he is a slightly above avg coach and took the tech program to slightly above avg. lawd knows after rickey stokes, that's some work, but i for one think the program can be better and certainly have someone who isn't ass while being it.
9 yrs was a good run.
now i will wave hi to the greenbergs peeping this.