There was no good forum for this, so it ended up here, mods feel free to move.
As we approach the one year mark for Mike Hill, I think itās an appropriate time to take stock of where he is and what he has accomplished. This Friday, March 15 will mark Mikeās official one year mark.
Here are my thoughts:
Overall Grade: B-
Basketball - B+
Mike came in to a terrible situation, but he acted quickly and decisively on basketball. The immediate non-retention of the old crew was welcomed. Sanchez appears to be a great hire on paper. That said, basketball won 8 games, so itās hard to say yet. I like the recruiting class we have coming in, but we are booked for the following year, so this upcoming class will be the bulk of Sanchezās make or break. If we would have managed to get 10 wins it probably would have been an A- but hard to give any better marks with where we are right now just hoping that the future will be better.
Football - B-
Hill decided to retain Lambert and give him the opportunity to save his job. I didnāt want that, but it happened. Football season was somewhat more fun than before because we won a few games, but we had yet again another throwaway season. The Mike Houston debacle was embarrassing. An NDA should be used from now on during negotiations, and we got embarrassed nationally. That said, I liked that Hill yanked the offer and we moved on. IMO, it was the only move, and he did it decisively.
Then we moved from what appeared to be a slam dunk hire to a much more unknown with Healy. I like his enthusiasm, he seems like a genuine guy, heās doing well on the recruiting trail, but letās not kid ourselves, he has coached three seasons, and had one winning season, and then followed that up with a losing campaign. I really want him to do well, and people have good things to say about him, but he is a HUGE unknown right now. Time will tell on the Healy hire.
Other Sports - C
Baseball is the only other thing I really care about and no major changes have been made yet. IPF moving along but that wasnāt Hillās doing. Other sports seem to be rolling along without significant changes as best I can tell.
Facilities / Intangibles - C+
The facilities study will be interesting when it comes out. Iām glad that we are performing it, but the next year will really be interesting to see what we undertake and how we accomplish it. C being average since so far we havenāt really done anything. Game day experience at both Halton and JRS seems largely unchanged. Marketing seems slightly better, but still underwhelming. Merchandise issues appears largely the same. I really like that Hill is more engaged with local media and active on social media. That said, I think if weād hired anyone under 50 for this position, we should have expected the type of intangible changes weāve seen so far.
This will be an interesting second year for Hill coming up. He will tackle facilities, should be more engaged with the staff, fan experience, etc., top to bottom. I hope we will continue to see good things.
Happy to hear otherās evaluations or anything critical of mine!