Gonzaga’s chances slip away; so did Daugherty’s
COLLEGE WOMEN
The Gonzaga women's loss at the hands of Middle Tennessee State was foreseen by many of us who had watched the GU team this year, though the margin was surprisingly wide.
The Bulldogs had trouble all season against teams with quickness, and MTSU was just another in a long line of those teams. The matchup for the Zags was about as bad as it could get. Despite the finish, this was the best year in Gonzaga women's basketball history, with the WCC title, the league's tournament title and the first NCAA berth in school history.
But let's add a piece of news about the future. GU freshman-to-be Courtney Vandersloot showed once again she is one of the better players in the state, leading the West 4A/3A all-star team to a victory over the East. Only two Greater Spokane League girls played, Shadle Park's Lexi Bishop and Mead's Kelli Valentine.
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We talked a little in a post below about job security among coaches. UW's June Daugherty knows a little about that now, after being let go by UW yesterday. (The Times' Steve Kelley's column today concerns the decision.)
Daugherty's firing brings up a point that's been a rock in my show for years: How the NCAA's student-athletes – and in this case, student-athletes-to-be – are just pawns in the organization's rules.
Lewis and Clark's Katelan Redmon signed a letter-of-intent to attend UW last fall, one of six players Daugherty recruited for next season. Now that Daugherty is gone, the players are still bound by their letter, which is signed with the institution, not the coach.
But don't kid yourself. Elite athletes have so many offers from such a diverse number of colleges, a big part of their choice revolves around the coach they will be playing for. Then that coach is gone, either fired or off to greener pastures. And the players a stuck, even if the new coach is the exact opposite of what they wanted in a mentor.
Over the years I've called for a period of amnesty, a 10- to 20-week period where college athletes can transfer with no penalty, with the possible exception of their former coach's new school, if that's part of the change. After that period, the student athletes are locked in, facing the same transfer rules and penalties any other transfer faces.
The same should apply to incoming athletes who have signed letters. Let them have a period of freedom. The school they signed with could even have an exclusive re-recruiting period. But the athlete would have some choices.