OT: Is Steve Alford a slimy guy?
With the rumblings of Indiana considering Steve Alford as a replacement for Tom Crean, an interesting piece was posted yesterday on IU's SB Nation site. I've seen other comments from IU fans saying they've already emailed Fred Glass and will stop donations to IU if they hire Alford.
I don't remember hearing about this years ago, but it's an interesting story.
Hiring Alford would be a dark day for Indiana University. But his continued ascension up college basketball’s ladder without expressing any sort of understanding over why his actions in handling the Pierre Pierce case were wrong sends a message to society & sexual assault victims far darker -- and one that matters far more than winning basketball games.
March 19th, 2017 at 11:59 PM ^
Choosing between Kentucky and UCLA is like choosing btween ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:03 AM ^
It certainly appears to be that way.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:19 AM ^
UCLA has been dirty for 50 years.
Yes, John Wooden's teams were bought and paid for.
However, when the system is that ingrained, the coach just knows what is going on behind the scenes. He doesn't have to direct anything or even acknoweledge it,
Iowa thing is bad. However, something that happend 3 jobs ago is forgotten. Fair or not.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:37 AM ^
That's why you've got IU alums writing the president and threatening to cut off donations if the hire goes through.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:59 AM ^
Those alums will change their tunes if they win. It's horrible and pathetic, but it's true. If it wasn't, then all the players and coaches who have done or known about horrible things would be out of jobs, but they aren't.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:36 AM ^
Indiana basketball fans are delusional and annoying. I *hope* they get Alford and pay through the snout for the privilege.
Alford reminds me of former baseball player/sex offender Chad Curtis. Their egos are so big that they believe they can do anything and not get caught.
This is the same school that enabled Bobby Knight for years and hired Kelvin Sampson.
i'd also point out - he's not a great coach, either. when he's got the horses, he's alright, but if he's in a tight game, bet on the other guy. think calipari with a lower talent level.
The sad reality of college/professional sports is that if he starts winning, everyone will shut up and fall in line.
There's a reason that guys like Rick Pitino still have a job. Winning makes a lot of problems go away.
I love how Indiana basketball likes to pretend they're some kind of wholesome program, when their entire claim to fame is based on a run of success under an asshole coach who acted like a child and verbally and physcially abused his players. Then they followed that up with a coach who was so corrupt that he earned a show-cause penalty within three years.
They have absolutely no right to judge whether a particular coach is "unhireable" due to past scumminess. Their program has always been scummy.
(None of this is to excuse Steve Alford, who seems like he might be a genuinely awful person. It's just a comment on the tone with which IU insiders seem to be judging who might be worthy to lead their storied program.)
March 20th, 2017 at 10:30 AM ^
March 20th, 2017 at 12:19 PM ^
So, your logic is that choking players is OK, or possibly beneficial?
March 20th, 2017 at 11:01 AM ^
I think maybe it's worth distinguishing between the various types of "scum." It's quite possible for an essentially good person to develop contempt for the regulatory apparatus that governs college sports and to behave accordingly. Did Wooden and Tarkanian run crooked programs? You bet. Were they scum?
I don't think it's completely unreasonable for boosters of a program to be OK with a certain level of shadiness in recruiting, or even personal behavior, but then to draw the line at Steve Alford.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:22 PM ^
That's totally fair. But I tend to think that a contempt for the rules in the name of building a good sports team usually isn't compartmentalized. Most coaches who tolerate some "harmless" rule-breaking, like giving a player some spending cash, probably aren't going to crack down too hard on truly harmful behaviors.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:47 PM ^
All he needed to do was shut up and let the legal system do its job.
It's a very, very long way from Jerry Tarkanian to Dave Bliss; Alford was on the wrong end of that spectrum. Maybe even off the scale--Bliss might have tampered with witnesses but at least he didn't directly go after the victim (he couldn't, the victim wasn't alive).
March 20th, 2017 at 12:52 PM ^
I don't know much about Alford's case specifically, but I think that in the light of the Baylor and PSU scandals, it's reasonable for teams to be wary of hiring a guy that even looks like he won't crack down on sexual assault.
My initial point was that I just think Indiana's holy attitude around basketball is bullshit. This isn't Hickory High; this is a major college program that has probably had slightly more than its fair share of scandalous incidents in the past. They should just hire a guy who they think is best to lead their program, without publicly ruminating on whether he's pure enough to carry the sacred torch of Indiana basketball.
Is that really your argument.
March 20th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^
Was shocked to click on this "Is X coach, who is not our coach, slimy?" link to see so many people think this coach is in fact slimy.
March 20th, 2017 at 11:05 AM ^
2002, has he done anything that has been this horrendous? I understand leaving NM for UCLA even though he signed a contract, unfortunately crap like that happens.
March 20th, 2017 at 12:20 PM ^
Not sure on what planet leaving UCLA for IU represents a "continued ascension" in college basketball.
From what I heard, all of this talk of Alford to IU is coming from Alford's camp--not IU. Aside from his issues with defending a rapist, he has also never gotten a team beyond the sweet 16.
He says it's a done deal and they're just waiting for UCLA's exit from the tournament to announce it. It's possible that his sources, and the ultimate sources for the coaches Doyel references in the comment upthread, are all in Alford's camp. But Dakich is a connected IU guy and it's hard for me to believe he'd be saying that without getting some sort of word from outside Alford's inner circle.
What I can imagine, since we lived through it not that long ago, is that there might be two camps inside IU's department and the one camp might not be fully aware of the strength of the other. But that's just speculation on my part....