Ok, so Bobby's out. Liked the guy, but this was probably a necessary move. We haven't beaten the Horns in a long time. Baylor? Not even in the same stratosphere. OU clearly surpassed us this year. And people who should not be competitive w/ us are on our heels - see Nebraska, Texas Tech, and Missouri. Although we did somehow beat Iowa State (B12 historic cellar-dweller) by a convincing 4-3 this year.

I personally hope we throw a lot of money on the table and go after Scrivano. I would love to see him trade in his green and gold for maroon and white. The guy is a freakshow of a coach, and I'd be proud to have him coach our teams. That move does a few things. It hurts your competition (actually, we haven't been that competitive w/ Baylor) by stealing their coach. W/in two years, Scivano will bury the Horns (uh, see what he's done over 10 years against them). It also probably hands us a TON of B12 Championships and puts us in the conversation for the national title. A place we BELONG given our facilities.

Meisner? Well, if you can't get Scrivano, good God, go get Meisner. One of the hottest coaches in the country. ANYONE who knows her knows she's a classy young lady. And she displayed AMAZING class when BK couldn't beat her on the court and in a very classy move, went to great lengths to "undo" the match on paper saying she stacked or something like that. Please. Just win on the court, which is where the match is played. I couldn't believe we did that a while back.

Someone said "she's not ready", and in the same post said they hope we give consideration to Mark Weaver . . .

Hmmmmm . . . let's see . . .

Mark Weaver (while a GREAT guy) has NO head coaching experience. None. Zip. Nadda. Meisner IS a head coach. Not ready? She just got back from the final 16 of the NCAA's THIS year! Meisner's team beat us straight up on our own courts this year in the NCAA's. Then they beat a very good Florida State team. Sorry, Mark (again, GREAT guy) isn't the right move folks.

Feel free to Pearl Harbor, but these are my thoughts . . .

I would rather claw my eyes out with a toothpick than see Joey in maroon and white. I would rather $Bill himself coach the team instead of joey.

That being said, the SMU coach did have a pretty decent audition not too long ago. But I also wouldn't be surprised if the coach is from out of state. I think its a pretty wide open race right now.

If only we had our own network to cover the search..../sarcasm

What do you have against Joey? I have been there for a lot of our one-sided losses against his teams. The guy is an amazing coach. When Bobby's groups were going against his, we all wanted to win. But we didn't and his players were/are just better. If there is an opportunity to get him, why would you NOT want to see him in maroon and white? Why would you not want to see those nasty players of his playing for US. Kicking the crap out of UT? And at the same time, having him here coaching our group would mean we wouldn't be playing AGAINST him. Something that really hasn't worked out very well for us, or for anyone outside of freaking Stanford. I just don't get it. The guy is a good dude. And I'm sorry . . . even if we get someone "amazing" . . . that person is going up against a coach who really knows how to win in the Big 12 on a million levels. I think we need someone who knows the Big 12 inside and out, and I'm hoping we raid another Big 12 school. And the ONLY school who has a coach I've genuinely "feared" is Baylor. I think we'd all come to love the guy if we get him.

And like I said, if not him, go get Meisner.

XlAggie = Mark Weaver

Eyeo***gie10s = Joey Scrivano

???

you are basically saying...."lets bring in mack brown or bob stoops to be our coach so we don't have to face them and their recruits can play for us."

Scrivano is making well over $100,000 at Baylor so what are we going to pay him? $150,000 or $200,000. There is no way we will pay that much for women's tennis. Scrivano would only leave for a program like Stanford or Florida where there is a true recruiting advantage.

mesiner over weaver you have got to be kidding me

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Mark Weaver (while a GREAT guy) has NO head coaching experience. None. Zip. Nadda. Meisner IS a head coach. Not ready? She just got back from the final 16 of the NCAA's THIS year! Meisner's team beat us straight up on our own courts this year in the NCAA's. Then they beat a very good Florida State team. Sorry, Mark (again, GREAT guy) isn't the right move folks.

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weaver knows more about tennis than weisner could ever dream of....Funny in your whole post you forget to compare their tennis playing career...

[This message has been edited by XIaggie (edited 5/29/2011 10:20p).]

[This message has been edited by XIaggie (edited 5/29/2011 10:21p).]

We just hired a basketball coach who looks like Butterbean and did not play college basketball. Apparently the guy can coach and so as long as we don't have to ask him go in there and run the floor, we should be ok. Some have said she can't coach but the results say otherwise. Who cares if she can hit a 150 mph serve or not? What hurts her most in my opinion is that she had the match against us annulled because of an illegal lineup. That's not really the squeaky clean image that Byrne usually goes for.

[This message has been edited by EKG12 (edited 5/29/2011 10:42p).]

EKG you have been pretty spot on in your posts.

But I believe the lineup fiasco was the other way around. SMU had a girl that was "injured" that was left in the lineup, when BK and Mark thought she should have been taken out which would have caused the other players to move up in the lineup and theoretically give us a better shot to win. This could been seen as stacking which is illegal (not sure of the exact rules) and in BK's eyes giving us a win by default which is why he protested the match.

It doesn't matter who was actually right in the situation it is a negative towards Meisner IMO, of course that is assuming that $Bill paid attention to that match.

SMU won the match but they were made to vacate the win after the NCAA decided they had knowingly played an injured girl to stack the line up. When the NCAA makes you vacate a win, that's not good. I had said earlier he hired squeaky clean, but then again I forgot he hired Billy Gillispie with fresh DWIs, so maybe I'm wrong.

By the way, my vote is Ronni Bernstein from Michigan.

http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/w-tennis/mtt/bernstein_ronni00.html

Michigan finished #10 and made the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row. She's got everything. Four time all American as a player, a long track record for success as a coach, and great American recruting (100% USA roster). She's from Miami so she has to be dying to get out of Michigan!

Ronni is definitely NOT dying to get out of Michigan. She is a very good coach, and has done a great job in Ann Arbor, where they used to be one of the worst teams in the Big Ten before she came over from FIU. They will compete for the conference title every year she is there, and probably stick around the top 5-15 for a long time. She is going to have her most talented team ever next year, with 2 blue chips and a 5 star coming in.

I'm sure she would do a great job if she came here, but it's not really worth discussing because I doubt we're pursuing her, and I doubt she would come if we were.

P.S. Meisner or Scrivano = no chance. They are good coaches, but Texas A&M women's tennis does not need a good coach. They need a home run, a game changer. And I'm confident that the people in charge know what they have to do to find that.

[This message has been edited by road not taken (edited 5/30/2011 12:14a).]

Guys, the hire has already been made. It won't be a homerun either.

Oh yeah? Who is it?

Coach Denton was not our first choice and did not look like a home run on paper but he has turned out to be awesome.

True, true, and true.

Doesn't mean that that ath dept is going to take a chance getting lucky with a diamond in the rough like that again. There are no more Denton/McKinley combinations out there, so in my opinion, they will try to steal someone away from a top program.

coach Denton was a top 50 pro and took a brand new program in A&M Corpus and turned them into a tourney team ever year...Mens tennis which is way harder than womens.

Big Difference between Denton and Mesiner to say they least..hth.

[This message has been edited by XIaggie (edited 5/30/2011 11:14a).]

I'm not saying Scrivano is the guy for our job, but how can you say he is not a great coach? Look at his record for crying out loud!

Name 10 better coaches over the last 10 years in womens college tennis.

Denton was not only a top 50 pro, he was #12 in the world.

On the other hand, he was 10-12 his last season at Corpus and only 64-48 overall there, making the NCAA tournament twice in 5 years. They have had to vacate a championship because of NCAA violations committed under Denton's watch.

I'm pretty sure the SMU illegal lineup (which happens ALL the time, by the way) is nothing compared to the stuff that was happening under Denton at Corpus. Again I'm not saying she's "the one" for us, but I don't think that what amounts to one "overrule" makes her dirty. Luke Jensen actually had a match result overturned (from a win to a loss) last year for playing his #1 player at #4 and he's still the toast of the town and getting featured no ridiculous articles about what a great coach he is.

If the guy in the know is right and its not a home run, my guess is Alison Ojeda. She will do better than she did at Middle Tennessee (below average) simply because it's A&M and she will get better players, but there is nothing about her resume that makes me think she is the female Denton.

You guys realize mesiner only got the job at SMU cause the prior coach was cheating....I bet the AD just said to her don't cheat and didn't really care who he hired....

That being said she has done a good job and took advantage of her chance good for her! But I don't think she is qualified to be the Aggie Women's Coach.

^^I hate this attitude where people think the AD's just "put people into" coaching gigs in non-revenue sports, and just say "run a clean program, and I don't care what happens on the court". To become a D-1 Athletic Director, you have to live and die for picking these coaches...for every sport. He knows who pays the bills, but AD'ing the football and bball program is not a 24-hour a day job, especially this time of year. I'm sure he'll do a thorough search to find the best option.

Don't have a clue who that is, however.

+1 for Blastoff, although i wish you did know who it was so you could tell us!

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^I hate this attitude where people think the AD's just "put people into" coaching gigs in non-revenue sports, and just say "run a clean program, and I don't care what happens on the court". To become a D-1 Athletic Director, you have to live and die for picking these coaches...for every sport. He knows who pays the bills, but AD'ing the football and bball program is not a 24-hour a day job, especially this time of year. I'm sure he'll do a thorough search to find the best option.

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thats why the smu ad hired an assistant with no head coaching experience...

got it thanks for the clearing that up.

People have this idea about college coaching being such a big-time job because of the salaries you see for football and basketball but SMU head women's tennis coach is a job that pays maybe $50k.

The previous guy at SMU wasn't cheating. He was fired because he was having "relations" with one of his players. By the way he had exactly one total year of assistant coaching experience before he got the SMU job. Meisner was his assistant and sure she fell into the job, but it's not like she was underqualified.

The guy who had the SMU job before the guy that got fired is the same guy who took over for Denton at A&M CC when he came here. Ironically, his only experience was three years' head coaching experience, also at Corpus (so he's back where he started). Basically like all of their other sports, tennis was terrible at SMU from the mid 80s until recently. Steve Moore actually left SMU to become Tim Cass' ASSISTANT coach here at A&M!

The point is that SMU was not a huge job in 2006 when she got it. It is what she has made it. It's probably not that far off to say that the AD didn't care all that much who he hired at SMU in '06 (as long as it wasn't someone that was going to get a player pregnant!), and he probably did say "stay out of trouble and don't cheat". Probably pretty much exactly what the AD said to Kleinecke 25 years ago when the A&M womens job was nothing and he was hired to because of Title IX. The difference is that in 25 years Kleinecke never managed to get the Aggies to the Sweet 16 and Meisner did that in just five years at SMU.

Mike Sherman did not play D1 football. Billy Kennedy and Gary Blair did not play college basketball at all! It's just silly to say that someone has a high school level grasp of a sport when they turn a program from nothing into a top-25 team.

That comment to me sounds like it comes from someone who might have been a pretty good player (and therefore puts a high value on that), but obviously doesn't understand much about college coaching. How else do you judge a coach than by their results? One of her players was ranked #2 in the country this year. I don't guess that girl coached herself all year.

I'm not saying she's the best candidate but Kleinecke wasn't bad because he couldn't play or coach. Those things might be true, but he got canned because he couldn't recruit. Denton isn't good because he used to could serve 140 mph. Be real, he's no more fit to practice with his players than Mike Sherman is. Denton is great because he can recruit. I'm sure his knowledge of the game is much higher than hers but that didn't help him win at Corpus with bad players! Matter of fact they finally started winning when they started illegally paying their players under Denton and that's why the Corpus had to vacate a championship.

Sure am glad we have him, but nobody is perfect, that's all I'm saying. I remember not so long ago when people were complaining about on Texags about his slow start and how he was a bad hire and how could anyone respect a coach that looked like he does. I hope we can have some faith in $B and support whoever we hire for the womens job a little more.

[This message has been edited by Harry Dunne (edited 5/31/2011 12:59a).]

No idea the salary was that low. With our facilities, I hope we pay well above market for a good coach. What is an extra $25-$50K when compared to a million...

To follow up on Harry Dunne's point: Gary Blair, who might be a women's bball hall of famer when all is said and done, wanted to coach baseball. Oops!

Don't buy that playing (in)ability is a death sentence for a coach. I mean, it's not like our program is loaded full of world top-50 players...

Look at Nick Bolletierri, arguably the best tennis coach on the planet. Probably a 3.5 player at best

LoL Nick isn't even one of the 3 best coaches at his academy. He is a promoter and a motivator.

nm

[This message has been edited by bigfoot10s (edited 5/31/2011 1:20p).]

Playing experience is absolutely irrelevant to coaching, except that it CAN have an impact on recruiting. It might attract potential pro players to our program because they believe Steve/Bobby can help them get to the tour. Mark's career, as a MAN competing on the satellite circuit, isn't likely to attract WOMEN'S recruits (not in the same way as two former Top 20 ranked players).

Lauren Meisner was a D-I player, after all (La Tech) and comes from a famous coaching family in the State of Texas (the Longbotham family). She has a lot of upside, but she wouldn't be my choice, personally.

Joey Scrivano is a winner. If we could hire him away (which I think unlikely), we should do it in a heartbeat. It would probably take $100-125K and a significant share in the camps (a HUGE moneymaker). That might sound like a lot to some of you, but it's no more that Tim Cass (and likely Denton) make/made.

Alison Ojeda has proven to be a successful assistant coach at A&M and Baylor, but her head coaching stint was unimpressive.

My thoughts on potential hires:

- Joey Scrivano, Baylor
- Dave Borelli, TCU
- Claire Pollard, Northwestern (former Lamar coach)
- Michael Hegarty, Arkansas
- Mike and Sonia Patrick, Tennessee
- Dean Orford, Tulsa
- Shannon Tully, UI-Chicago
- John and Laurie Mercer, Marshall

Actually, now that I think about it a little more, maybe the new women's tennis coach IS already on campus.

Bobby McKinley.

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You guys realize mesiner only got the job at SMU cause the prior coach was cheating....I bet the AD just said to her don't cheat and didn't really care who he hired...

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Is this the same AD spent millions on new facilities for golf, tennis, rowing, softball, etc... the past few years? The same AD who was putting all 20+ sports at his prior gig in the postseason?

Some ADs are businessmen who don't know a backhand from a forehand, but Steve Orsini is not one of those ADs.

Let's hire Grant Connell

<end of discussion>

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Guys, the hire has already been made. It won't be a homerun either.

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I figured something would be out by now...

Surely it won't be too long til something is announced.