Important quotes:
“He allows me to express my vision about what I want to do, and that’s really refreshing,” said 49ers baseball coach Loren Hibbs.
Said women’s basketball coach Cara Consuegra: “The biggest thing so far is his listening and wanting to know where we are and what do we need. What are our biggest challenges? That’s refreshing with a new boss.
Nice article.
Winning…
Wish it was on something in addition to the Charlotte Observer. I get the feeling that “not a lot” of people read the CO.
clt is glad to hear from karen
Readng this article, I got the feeling that Hill’s level of frustration with football is not as high as mine is.
I don’t think he’s going to come out and talk down about the program. If you want to dissect his comments, you can easily look at this “Coaching stability, that’s a consistent factor in successful programs, for what it’s worth” – Lambert’s on his 3rd set of coordinators…
ALso: “Football develops over the season,” Hill said. “It’s how we play, how we look, not just wins and losses. Brad evaluates things the same way. So we’ll know how we’re doing as the season goes along.” – that’s not exactly a vote of confidence either.
He’s too smart to trash the team mid season when trying to fill the stadium. No way is he excited and seriously doubt he has patience for mediocrity.
Okay, you guys make some good points. I do believe as the season progresses the situation will take care of itself. I will be more patient.
I just have a gut feeling that Hill is already going to replace him. I’ve said that he will be gone by Halloween, but Reynolds and Tucker are saving him a bit. For Hill, he has a limited time frame to prove that he is the person to do this job. He does not have a lot of time to turn around programs. I would be really nervous if I were in his position and my future was tied to Lambert’s success. His basketball decision will determine about 30% of his success, football decisions about 60%, and everything else 10%. I just feel like what he does with football will drive whether he gets a contract extension or even a better job with more money. The better job with more money could be staying put and moving into a better conference, but football and basketball play a huge part in that as well.
You may be right but has acquired this team and has done little building around it himself. He also hasn’t been at Charlotte the past 5 years to have input or control to be frustrated at the results
Unless Lambert has a knock out year (unlikely despite improved QB play), I think Hill has no choice but to make a change. Doesn’t take much brain power to figure that much of the reason Judy is gone is her decision to retain Brad. Hill knows what’s up with the situation.
I got the chance to meet Mike at the TriAd Alumni get-together last Thursday at Childress Vineyards. Wow, what a motivational speaker. I’m very impressed with Mike Hill and what he has in store for our athletic programs. We made a great hire!
I live about 5 miles from the Vineyards but I had a work event and could not make it. I hate I missed him.
We have to remember that this is the first season Hill has followed or had interest in this program & if you just look at the record there appeared to be some progress each year until last year of course. I think we are all frustrated with losing but probably more with the quality of play & lack of progress in that area. I’m really torn this year because I want to win every game but worried if we approach 5 to 7 wins that could save Lambert’s job. I know recruiting sucks & quality of play is still not great but how do you explain keeping a coach after a 1 win season only to fire him after winning 6 or 7 games. I most likely won’t have to worry about that scenario but I do think it would make Hill’s decision difficult.
Two hopeful football thoughts…
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Maybe he’s talking to spurrier about potential coaches and getting some help landing a candidate.
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He’s been seen interacting with the players. There’s probably a good amount of trust building so that when Lambert is let go the team doesn’t lose all of the talent. It would be tough/distracting for a new coach to have to build up a football team if was completely gutted. You’d rather a new coach focus on landing 15-20 new players rather than 45.