Dave Hart knows how to pick coaches

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

As the saying goes: "The race may not always go to the swift, nor victory to the strong...but that's how you bet." Athletic Director Dave Hart showed his thoroughbred genes in the hiring of Steve Robinson as FSU's new basketball coach.

In effect, Hart hit a game-winning home run in the bottom of the 9th. Few gave Florida State any chance of landing a coach of the Atlantic Coast Conference calibre in the mid-summer, and many were suggesting that Hart hire an interim coach until next season, when an appropriate array of "big names" could be pursued. But Hart got his man, his first choice, through an adroit combination of persistence, cleverness and close control of information.

There were two reasons Hart had to win this game. First, he insisted on conducting the search in secret, much to the displeasure of sports writers ravenous for meat to put on the thin bones of summer's news.

"WHY IS FSU'S HART KEEPING US IN THE DARK?" cried one headline. "Is this an indication of what we're in for when the day comes - maybe 20 years from now - when he has to look for Bobby Bowden's successor?" The media are not used to being denied. These are the folks who demand, and get, copies of President D'Alemberte's e-mail and Bobby Bowden's correspondence. There are the guys who requisitioned copies of the notes FSU administrators and lawyers used to prepare for the Footlocker press conference, and then criticized FSU for having a plan to deal with the media.

But Hart knew his man and knew how the machinery of changing coaches works. Hart knew he'd have no chance of signing Robinson if word leaked out that he was a candidate. In fact, in all the material I read speculating on replacements, I can't remember seeing Robinson's name.

Robinson was a prize, heir to the coaching chair vacated by Nolan Richardson and Tubby Smith. But Robinson had just signed a new seven-year contract at Tulsa, and had underscored his intent to stay at Tulsa by turning down several other plum offers.

According to Robinson's wife, Lisa, "Dave had called three times, and Steve told him 'no' three times...I really didn't think he'd call again." It seems that if any of this had been made public at any time, the delicate process of seduction would have collapsed.

There is a second reason Hart had to score a big win. Already cranky about the decision (a right & proper decision, I believe) to sue former women's basketball coach Chris Gobrecht over the provisions of her abandoned contract, the media were shaping the search for Pat Kennedy's replacement as the first major test of Hart's Florida State tenure. "After the Gobrecht mess, this is a huge hire for Hart," they mumbled darkly. "And the critics are hovering."

Hart never wavered, never blinked, never hedged. He stepped up to the plate knowing the game was on the line, and whacked it right out of the park.

And the media were impressed, both with Hart, and especially with Robinson. The Jacksonville Times-Union trumpeted, "Hart has finally put a personal stamp on FSU's athletic program...This was a tremendous coup for Hart, who was able to do what Tennessee, Ohio State and Memphis couldn't do: persuade one of the hottest young coaches in the business to leave his first head coaching job in Tulsa after only two seasons."

Losing Robinson was a shock to the Golden Hurricane. He had signed a new seven-year contract just this March, but Tulsa Athletic Director Judy MacLeod had included no buy-out provision. Robinson could simply walk away with no financial penalty. Hart insists that all coaches he hires - Chris Gobrecht was the first - sign contracts that will pay Florida State for the remaining years if they bail out to coach another school.

MacLeod, who came to Tulsa as a graduate assistant and was named athletic director only in February, was simply overmatched by the more experienced Hart.

Think of Tulsa as a sort of mesquite barbecue version of Wake Forest. It is a very good, small, private school with excellent academic standing and a fine athletic tradition (13 post-season basketball tournaments in the last 17 years). With only 4,000 students, it is one of the smallest Division I universities.

MacLeod was something less than gracious. She said she'd felt pretty secure that Robinson would be there a long time and could be lured away only by one of a small handful of elite schools. "I guess we all have different opinions about what is an attractive program," she growled. "I'm not trying to put down the Florida State basketball program..."

No, of course you're not trying to put Florida State down. Let me be just as candid going back the other way: Tulsa had no more chance of keeping Steve Robinson as head basketball coach than Oklahoma State had of keeping Jimmy Johnson as head football coach.

Listen to Robinson: "I dreamed of wanting to be a coach at the highest possible level...I knew my dreams, my goals, were to be at the highest level, and this is what I consider to be the highest level of college basketball...I'm getting to coach in the major league against some major legends."

The new kid on the ACC block is a thoroughbred. Bet on it.

And yes, as a matter of fact, when the time comes to choose a successor to Bobby Bowden, I hope this is exactly the way it's conducted. Hart has proved he can deliver when it counts.