Maybe Bill can hire Mary Wise away from Florida. She has been there a long time (17 years), but the SEC doesn't challenge her teams enough to make them competitive on the national stage. It would be equivalent to Texas hiring Gail Goestenkors. But, it would be awesome to see her go head to head with John Cook and Jerritt Elliott regularly in the Big 12.

This has to be a joke/troll. She is building a monster down there and there is no way Florida lets her get away.

i understand it is unlikely for florida to let her go... but after getting pat henry, ANYTHING/ANYONE (coach wise) is possible

unless the sport is football. . . .

People take Volleyball much more seriously than track.

I am assuming that is just sarcasm TempoShorts b/c the new indoor track complex confirms that plenty more powerful people have taken Track & Field far "more seriously than" volleyball. And, a new outdoor Track stadium is scheduled to follow the grand opening of the McFerrin indoor track. I have heard of no such plans to even renovate G.Rollie White, much less build a new volleyball facility.

[This message has been edited by onetexasaggie (edited 10/11/2008 11:59a).]

Mary Wise is a lofty coach to go after, but no chance anyone lures her away from Florida. Texas went after her in the 90's, when Haley left and she turned them down. She's built a great program there and has the #1 recruiting class this year. They will win a national title before too long with that class.

The only sure bet is that nothing will be done to improve the conditions for volleyball until Bill hires someone. Perhaps making a statement in volleyball to build champions will take away from the disaster that is football.

I think the track facilities go hand-in-hand with the hiring of Pat Henry. We made a commitment to improve his facilities because he made a commitment to join our staff. I'm sure volleyball could be peitioning to the Athletic Department for better facilities (although they already have good facilities, just good use a facelift) if they were experiencing more success. And I think the way to get more success is to bring in a fresh face. If Byrne wants to bring in a top coach, I'm sure he will have to commit to upgrading their facilities to make it easier to bring in top recruits.

All that being said, I doubt we have chance at hiring Mary Wise away from Florida.

If facilities need a face lift or if we need new facilities in general it should be done regardless of whether a new coach is brought in. If we are committed to building champions then we should be doing our best for each sport as they exist right now. If we aren't willing to upgrade facilities for the existing coach then we really aren't committed to making their program the success it can be. I believe this to be the case in all sports and not just volleyball. It is an issue that I'm sure is a sore subject for some of our former coaches as well.

I think what most folks fail to realize is building champions takes considerable alumni support. Whether an athletic director upgrades/ builds new facilities for a program or hires top notch coaches, it takes financial backing. The hiring of Pat Henry as track coach was a unique situation in Texas A&M Athletics…something that volleyball or any other Aggie program will unlikely be capable of replicating.

When BB made the decision to hire a new track coach, he didn’t mess around. He contacted Phil Knight at Nike and asked him for the name of the number 1 track coach in the U.S. (for those who may not be able to appreciate what a bold move this was, consider that Nike is power central for the U.S. Olympic Track & Field program, billionaire Knight co- founded the company with legendary Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman and BB was the former AD in Eugene). Knight gave BB Pat Henry’s name. BB managed to hire PH away from the very same NCAA track juggernaut that Henry built. And indeed, the condition to coach here at A&M was reportedly new state-of-the-art track facilities. And if I remember correctly, the deal also made Coach Henry the highest paid NCAA track coach and is the sole reason that track is the only program to be sponsored by Nike (vs. Adidas).

This type of audacious hire took considerable alumni support, something several reliable sources reported that even football could not afford last year. I’ve seen substantial, unjustified BB bashing on the forum over the Pat Henry hire. I’ve also seen miracle expectations for volleyball as a result of the Henry hire. The bottom line is that the track alumni were not going to throw their weight behind new facilities nor support a pay raise for a former coach under a mediocre regime, and it is highly improbable that BB will be able to find the same financial backing to make a Pat Henry-like hire for volleyball. BB is talented, aggressive and IMHO the best AD in the country. He will do the absolute best that he can for A&M volleyball, which will hopefully translate to a “Billie Gillespie” type hire for the volleyball program.

I don't think this department can afford to pay over the top for a volleyball coach as we did for track. There are too many other projects that must be taken care of first. With regard to Henry, I am sure Phil Knight recommended him as Henry is his high profile sprint coach and Byrne had a relationship with Knight. Byrne's relationship with Henry goes back much further to his time at New Mexico and had much more to do with Henry's hiring than a Phil Knight recommendation. With regard to the mediocre track program I will agree that we were mediocre on the women's side but the men had won conference two year's prior to Henry's arrival and were a perennial top twenty program. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have gone after Henry but the continued misrepresentation of the poor state of men's track prior to Henry's arrival is just not accurate. In fact, prior to this past year, Henry had not surpassed Nelson's performances at nationals or conference on the men's side and he has yet to win a conference title. You can argue we should have won conference last year but we didn't and unlike the football team the cupboard wasn't bare on the men's side when Henry came in.

I understand this is a volleyball thread, but “perennial top twenty track program” we were not. In fact, Nelson registered top twenty finishes in less than half of his seasons as head coach, even after inheriting a program that was runner-up national champions. He did, however, manage to finish 38th outdoors his final season. Nelson’s first full recruiting class as head coach finished 48th at nationals, while Henry’s first full recruiting class finished 5th. Finally, Nelson had 30 returning letterman his final season, while Henry inherited just 15 returning letterman in his first season. The cupboards were certainly much more barren for Henry than they were for Sherman (and I promise you, football will not conclude this year's season ranked 29th like Henry managed his first season).

The above statistics do not tell the complete story of Ted Nelson or men’s track however. Anyone that follows A&M athletics closely understands that Nelson is one of the unsung hero’s in Texas A&M athletics. Junction boys Stallings and Crow declared open warfare on the track program, not b/c track was sub-par…but because they were jealous of the program’s success. Nelson not only managed to keep the program alive under a fascist AD like JDC, he managed to keep the program respectable. Most Aggies remember JDC’s senseless firing of Shelby Metcalf, most never knew that JDC threatened to fire the track coach if he “ever did anything stupid like try to win another national championship again- b/c only football was allowed to win a national championship”. Crow further outlined that “conference championships were fine”, which is exactly what Nelson accomplished. Groff simply picked up where JDC left off. Enter an AD like BB who’s mantra is “building champions”, and Nelson gets “retired” in the transition away from mediocrity.

If anything, prior to BB’s arrival the track team suffered from institutionalized mediocrity. I’m not arguing that Nelson was a bad coach. Just the opposite is true: Nelson far exceeded expectations considering his prescribed limitations. My point is that we should give credit where credit is due. Nelson was the victim of a former oppressive regime, but that doesn’t make Henry any less of a coach or the bad guy as a result. And BB is currently continuing Jackie’s legacy of making every A&M program great.