Gold Rush: 100% Cotten
4/16/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
April 16, 2003
by Stan Cotten
Hiring good coaches and keeping them when other schools come courting. All in a day's work and, apparently, the vicissitudes of being the athletic director at Wake Forest.
With the news that head basketball coach Skip Prosser had said "no thanks" to Pittsburgh following the Panthers' full-court press to lure him back to his hometown to fill their coaching vacancy, Wake Forest AD Ron Wellman was batting 1.000. He had endured an athletic year that had seen two franchise coaches, Prosser and football coach Jim Grobe, spurn media reports and speculation that each was headed for greener grass. But Grobe is not at Baylor or East Carolina, and Prosser is not at Pittsburgh. They are both at Wake Forest. For 10 more years.
And Ron Wellman can be thanked for that.
"Skip Prosser and Jim Grobe are unique individuals," Wellman said during the announcement that Prosser was staying in Winston-Salem. "You go way out on a limb when you have a contract like that (10 years). But I think that limb is strong because of the caliber of person if nothing else. They represent the university in such a positive way."
Grobe and Prosser each controlled his own destiny and could have left. But for various reasons, each decided that it was worth staying at Wake Forest. Not to be discounted is the working environment and job security provided them by Wellman.
When I was at Marshall University, then senior associate athletic director Jack Daniels (being from Tennessee always makes me smile at his name) once told me that one of the great unknowns that went along with the responsibility of hiring people was waiting to see who actually showed up for work on that first day. All of us who have been hired can turn that around. One of the mysteries when showing up for work after being retained is whether or not you'll find the same place waiting on you that you were shown during the interview. Is this a place where I really want to work? So it works both ways - a fact not lost with either Wellman or Prosser.
"It's a tremendous feeling when you know that when you come to work every day you're going to interact with a Jim Grobe or a Skip Prosser," Wellman said. "It's fun to come to work. There's a thrill about that, a comfort about that, a feeling of security about that, that makes you anticipate coming to work."
"If I didn't feel good about that relationship (with Wellman) this (press conference) would not have been an occurrence," Prosser said flatly. "Wake Forest is an environment in which I feel very comfortable."
With Grobe and Prosser, we now know where each stands on the subject. Wake Forest is where each wants to be. And much of the credit has to go to Ron Wellman, under whose leadership both the football and basketball programs, with Grobe and Prosser at the helm, have flourished. Wellman hired them both and successfully led the fight to keep them.
Now who deserves a 10-year contract?
