Gail and Plonsky

Well, I think the world of Gail. She is marvelous person. I'm glad that she is $5 million richer, but I feel bad that she was put in a position where it was impossible for her (with her background) to succeed.

Early in my career, I had a similar experience where an executive hired me into a management job that was far too demanding for my background and qualifications. It was one of the worst experiences of my life, although I eventually grew into the job. I think Gail was put into a similar impossible situation. She was incredibly successful at Duke, but she didn't have to recruit there.

In Texas, in almost any sport, getting the most talented players on the team is about 75% of the job. And it takes a special and highly experienced person to get that done. You either have to have deep Texas or UT roots, or have the personality of a Mack Brown. Gail had neither.

And Plonsky had no clue about any of that. She apparently still thinks Texas is just like Ohio. It isn't.
 
Well said. Well said. Texas culture is so different from any other state.

I attended a high school game and I could tell Coach felt uncomfy huggiing Empress' family. In TX we show love to everyone n I have friends from the east coast and they don't get all the hugs n affection we southerners display.
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So, since we are near the end of the women's basketball season, WHO do we entice/go after to fill the vacancy? I doubt if the Baylor or a&m would leave for us. I am sure Texas willl open the wallet.
 
I'm very sad to see her go as well and certainly wish her the best. I can't believe some are criticizing an AD for hiring someone who was the best available coach in the country at that point. Or implying that there is some magic recipe to recruiting in Texas that someone from another part of the country can't master. Coaches move all over the country and recruit in areas they don't have experience, not to mention that recruiting is done on a national basis anyway. All coaches recruit everywhere. And there are some names being mentioned as possible replacements who don't have any more experience with the Texas high school scene than Gail did when she arrived. And I certainly don't think we're going to go after any of the other Big12 coaches. Blair is older now than JC was when she retired, so I doubt he'll even be around at the point his incoming recruiting class graduates. And Mulkey isn't an option either, for a variety of reasons. As Plonsky said there is likely already a short list and i'm certain we'll hear more about the candidates at some point.
 
I also wish Coach G well in whatever the future holds for her. Perhaps she had a string of bad fortune or perhaps this just wasn't a good fit for her, it doesn't really matter. I think she did her best, cared about the kids and the school, and acted with integrity.

What I find really interesting is all the new posters, to the women's forum anyway, posting their hatred for Chris Plonsky. 1000+ posts, and their first post on the women's forum is to badmouth Plonsky? Good grief.
 
I can't speak to some of that original post and won't try. But,the suggestion that Coach G had a bad relationship with her team is way, way off base.
 
It's very easy to go back with hindsight and rake someone over the coals for the decisions they made. I think the OP is projecting their personal situation on to this one. At the time, Goestenkors was hired she was one of the Top 3 coaches in the country. I thought back then people were crazy to even speculate we'd get her away from Duke. That was and remains a major coup. Should Plonsky have been more clued in to the differences in recruiting?...probably. If she had been do you think she'd still have not gone after her? I don't think so. As far as keeping some of the coaches, I was torn at the time and I think people forget the team, like now, was not very good. We supposedly had signed a #1 recruiting class (Arriaran's class) and the current staff was getting nothing out of them. If I had been in Gail's shoes would I have kept anyone or cleaned house? I remember what my boss said when he came into my company (before I was hired) and took over the department "My biggest mistake was not cleaning house when I first arrived". My beef with her is not the initial mistakes, that's water under the bridge. I do think she needed to do more to rectify these things. This program has not had a really good point guard since Jamie Carey/Nina Norman left. That is inexcusable. I don't know who we will hire but their first order of business needs to be get someone in capable of running the show on the court.

The great news about this timing is there are no seniors on next year's squad. That gives the new coach a very small cushion to work with. Hopefully the 2013 class will remain intact. It's probably naive to believe there won't be any defections at all, if there are get out there and sign a damn point guard or two.
 
Plonsky is getting what Dodds got right before three great hires that all believed in defense: Brown, Garrido, Barnes.

Have faith. She is about to hire her Mack Brown on this one.
 
Sending you the very best wishes Gail. You will be missed. Thank you for giving it your best and I sincerely hope you go on to continued greatness in the sport you so dearly love.

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Pericles, your post misstates facts and history about Duke. Goestenkors built that program from the ground up. It was at the bottom of the ACC; one NCAA berth in the program's history before she got there. To say she did not have to recruit is completely false. What she accomplished was amazing. The fact that she could not replicate the success at Texas does not change what she did at Duke.
 
If you think this is bad, go to the men's hoop forum. A lot of poster blame Barnes for all the "one and done" prima donna's that have gutted that program.

Yea like Rick would tell a recruit to just give us one year and than make enough to retire for life.

This board is tame compared to that.

The bottom line is this, When Sherryl Swoops transferred to TTU, the Texas program went from being the elite of the elite to not even in the top tier of the conference.
 
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