After suffering a devastating play-off defeat at the buzzer, the DirtKing is back and refreshed! I took some time off after our loss last week – bought a new car and took the DirtQueen and the Little DirtBags away for a few days. After lounging by the pool over the weekend, I am now ready to go as we begin our busy season in the “dirt” world!
A quick reminder before we get to the dirt…if you need a job posted, send it to us – we DO NOT CHARGE to post jobs. Just take a peek at one of our current job listings, enter the info how you’d like it, and submit it through the contact us section. We’ll get it up for you ASAP.
Now a few things that I’ve heard over the past few days…
• Rumors are beginning to swirl surrounding the USC job. The three names that I keep hearing are Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon, New Mexico head coach Steve Alford, and Harvard head coach Tommy Amaker. Obviously it’s early here, but the rumor mill is churning. I would however not put much stock into the Amaker rumor – with his wife on the faculty at Harvard, I’m not sure a cross-country move is something that’s going to happen. Also, don’t discount interim head coach Bob Cantu – he has had the Trojans playing well (5-5) since the departure of Kevin O’Neil in January.
• Looks like our compadres at Parsing the WAC jumped the gun on the situation at San Jose State. Last week, the reported that head coach George Nessman had been dismissed effective immediately (http://parsingthewac.blogspot.com/2013/02/san-jose-state-uni…). Nessman immediately denied the claim, and is in fact still on the job. PTW now claims that the move will take place at the conclusion of the season. I think the most interesting thing about this story is the comments section under the article – guys can be brutal! I don’t know what’s worse being a coach, or being a blogger – everyone is getting hammered there! We’ll keep an eye on this one.
• Scott Gernander has taken over as the interim head coach at San Jacinto College. Gernander played at San Jac for his father – Scott Gernander Sr. and also served as an assistant to him there. The elder Gernander went 640-158 in his 31 seasons at San Jac. The younger Gernander replaces Jacob Wonders who has decided to take a medical leave of absence. I have heard that he is suffering from vertigo. We wish him well in his recovery.
• I can confirm that Penn State New Kensington has hired Art McCray as the new head basketball coach. He replaces Joe Mandak who served as the interim head coach for the last few weeks of the season. Mandak took over for Doug Schneider who resigned at the end of January to focus on the real world. McCray had been the head coach at Summit Academy for the past three seasons. He is a Penn State New Kensington alum.
