This is crazy – 144 applicants for the West Florida job – and they published the names! As a coach, I think this stinks. Whenever I have applied for a job, I just assumed that it was a private application. When I was an assistant, I would always tell my head coach if I was interested, and he would make a call. Now, as a head coach (ahh…I let some info about the DirtKing’s identity slip…..), I don’t always feel that it’s in my best interest to tell my AD. If I made it past the initial screening process, I would let my boss know out of courtesy that I was involved, but I’m not telling him every time I send a resume out (I’ve only done it a few times – I’m in a great situation now, and not looking to move). I think it would be tough if he found out from reading the paper that I was one of 144 candidates (I’m not). I don’t think its right for West Florida to publish the list and it will definitely make me think about it if I decide to apply somewhere in the future. I guess these things are not considered private, and I will make sure that it is something that I want to really get involved with, and that I am prepared to let my AD know from the start. That being said, since they published the list, we may as well break it down a little (that’s what we do!)………

Our intern is out today, so it would take too long to match all of the names up with their current schools, but here are the highlights of who has applied:

Former NBA players: Tiny Archibald and Tree Rollins.

Former DI head coaches: Paul Cormier (Fairfield, Dartmouth, former NBA assistant), Jeff Price (Georgia Southern), Royce Waltman (Indiana State), Scott Edgar (Southeast Missouri), and Jim Boone (Eastern Michigan, Robert Morris).

There are also more than 30 current DI assistants on the list and a ton of DII and DIII head coaches. You can see the full list published by the Pensacola New Journal at the link below.

Once the finalists are announced, I will break it down some more and let you know if we hear of any favorites.