As Dan Hurley reportedly meets with the Los Angeles Lakers about their head coaching vacancy, Mike Greenberg is wallowing in what it means for the state of college sports.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski began Thursday with a Woj bomb, reporting the Lakers are targeting UConn’s Dan Hurley for their head coaching vacancy. The news jumpstarted a pile of storylines after The Athletic’s Shams Charania previously reported the Lakers were zeroing in on ESPN’s JJ Redick for the job. But Greenberg went on his ESPN Radio show and added one more branch to the content tree by claiming this news is detrimental to college sports.
“The very end of collegiate sports as we have always known them.”
—@Espngreeny https://t.co/8O9OhmxmV4 pic.twitter.com/PcyoiiHxM2
— ESPN Radio (@ESPNRadio) June 6, 2024
“This story solidifies that what we are witnessing is the end, the very end of collegiate sports as we have always known them,” Greenberg said on Greeny, echoing a conversation started by co-host and producer Paul Hembekides (Hembo).
“I think this story is enormous in so many ways,” Greenberg continued. “If in the same year, Jim Harbaugh wins college football’s national championship as he did in Michigan, and Dan Hurley wins college basketball’s national championship as he did at UConn, and both depart to go to the pros, it will be the first time since at minimum 1936 when the defending national championship coaches of both college football and men’s basketball were not back with their following teams the same year. And I do not think that is a coincidence.”
We are talking about the Lakers head coaching job, right? Despite that chair being a revolving door of head coaches in recent years, it’s still the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most prestigious coaching jobs in basketball.
Greenberg’s point would have been stronger if Hurley was fielding an offer from, say, the Washington Wizards. It also would have been stronger if Jim Harbaugh hadn’t already been waiting years for the right time to make the jump back to the NFL. It just so happens that coming off a season where he was suspended twice, facing future sanctions, and could embrace finally gifting his alma mater a national championship was the right time.
John Calipari just took a new job at 65; Rick Pitino took one last year at 70. College sports are changing, not ending. Those changes might be presenting new challenges for veteran coaches, but they’re also affording their most valuable asset, the athletes, financial empowerment.
Hurley might go to the NBA, take the Lakers’ job, succeed, or fail. But amid all of those mights, college sports will survive.
