Farewell Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski & Most Recently, Jay Wright. A Change in College Basketball.

    In the last 2 College Basketball seasons we've lost 3 of the best coaches of all time to retirement: Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, and Jay Wright. College basketball will never be the same without these 3 guys, and the game will deeply miss them. Due to their age, Coach K's (75) and Roy Williams' (71) retirements could've been predicted, but Jay Wright's retirement came as a surprise to most college basketball fans. Many fans, including myself, were shocked about the news, but I think I have an idea of what could've caused Jay Wright's exit from College Basketball.

    Jay Wright is 60 years old, and his Villanova program has been on the top of college basketball as of late. The Villanova Wildcats won the NCAA Tournament in both 2016 & 2018, made the 2022 Final Four, won 4 of the last 7 Big East regular season titles, and won the 2022 Big East Conference Championship. So, with all of this recent success, it is sort of confusing on why he would retire in his early 60s. I think I may have an answer: NIL. This acronym refers to "Name, Image & Likeness". According to Mary Omatiga of NBC Sports NIL is a "new NCAA policy" that allows "student-athletes from all three divisions to monetize their name, image, and likeness... athletes now have the opportunity to accept endorsements from brands, monetize their social media presences, and work with professional firms to coordinate deals." This new policy is amazing. It allows student athletes who work hours typical of a full-time, in addition to participating in college course work, to finally make money from their popularity. Many of these athletes' jersey and game ticket sales are incredibly profitable, but not until now have these athletes been able to see some of that money land into their own pockets. Being somewhat of an athlete and observer of the average college athlete workload, I am in full support of a rule which gives more power and profitability to the hard working amateur athlete. I mean, does it really make sense that some of these head coaches are making 7-8 figure salaries, while their players can't afford to have a meal to eat on Sunday nights after their campus cafeteria closes?

    The NIL is well deserved and needed, but it does change a few things systematically within collegiate athletics. Before the NIL was put into play, it could be said that head coaches in college athletics held more power than head coaches of professional sports. Collegiate athletes were much more prone to comply with their coaches because their coaches had all the control. Coaches control playing time, which enables how much time an athlete can be seen by pro scouts, which is imperative to deciding whether that college athlete can achieve a professional career or not. College athletes, especially from low income families, have very limited resources, so their only choice was to do what their college coaches told them in order to achieve their goals of making it to the big leagues and that big league money. Now, with the NIL policy and the transfer portal, college coaches are having a much more difficult time keeping their program stable. College athletes are now signing sponsorship deals with all sorts of companies that will pay them for their Name, Image and Likeness. College athletes don't necessarily need their coaches to make money any more, and now if an athlete doesn't like their situation at a certain institution, they can input themselves into the transfer portal. According to The GW Hatchet, The transfer portal allows student athletes "to transfer once during their collegiate career without any punishment on their play time." The combination of the NIL and transfer portal has empowered the college athlete, put money in their pocket, and enabled them to make better choices for their own advancement. 

    Now, let's get back to Jay Wright. He resigned at 60, while not only being the helm of a very successful college basketball program; he was the standard across the across the country. Wright was seen as a veteran coach, who was able to get his players to play in what was his idea of the Wright way. See what I did there? But seriously, I considered Wright a top 3 coach in college basketball, so it was a huge shocker to me when he resigned, especially when there are still guys like Jim Boeheim (77), Bob Huggins (68) and my guy Kelvin Sampson (66) out there. I do think believe that the NIL and transfer portal had a lot do with his retirement. These new polices signal a huge shift in collegiate athletics. For a coach that spent all of his career in the age of player amateurism and strict NCAA polices surrounding players making money, this new era can seem like a foreign language. The booster programs at different universities are now throwing money at recruits, who are now more like free agents. Isn't that the same thing that caused SMU to receive the Death Penalty in 1987? So, I can see how certain coaches may see this new era as hypocritical or overwhelming, although I do not think this is the reason why Jay Wright ultimately resigned. Jay Wright and Kelvin Sampson are similar coaches. Now, I understand that Jay Wright is more of suave, suit wearing gentleman and Kelvin Sampson gets so hype during games that by the end his tie has been flung somewhere along the sideline, but the two actually have one pivotal aspect of coaching in common: Culture. Like the University of Houston, Villanova doesn't actively recruit McDonald's All-Americans and top 10-ranked prospects. Jay Wright gets guys who will buy in to his system, his way his teams conduct themselves on and off the court, his culture. And as more players are willing to leave as soon they disagree with a decision their coaches make, the ability to get buy-in into a culture becomes more and more difficult. Basketball is much more of a smaller sport than football. 2-3 athletes leave a football program, and that program can still sustain itself, but if 2-3 athletes leave a basketball program, it completely changes the identity and talent level of that team. Again, I love the empowerment and freedom the new NCAA policies and systems give to collegiate athletics, but I am also hoping they don't change the youthful comradery and culture of college basketball's most successful programs. The future of college athletics as a whole is an interesting one, with or without some of our most storied coaches.

Credits:

https://sports.nbcsports.com/2022/04/25/nil-and-ncaa-what-to-know-about-the-new-policy-and-how-nbc-sports-can-help/

https://www.gwhatchet.com/2022/04/25/ncaas-transfer-portal-explained/