Friar Fans Stunned by Larranaga’s Latest Decision
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Shocking! That’s the response of many after 61-year old Jim Larranaga decided to leave a “comfortable” situation at George Mason to take the head coaching position for the men’s basketball program at the University of Miami.
Providence College basketball fans vividly remember 3 years ago when Larranaga turned down a lucrative offer to leave George Mason to revive the Friars program. PC athletic director Bob Driscoll said at the time, “we offered him a very substantial package but he was too comfortable in his current situation and opted to stay at George Mason.”
So the question is: what changed? Why did Larranaga decide to leave his “comfortable” situation at George Mason now to coach in a major conference like the ACC? Is he now less comfortable at George Mason than he was 3 short years ago? Or is the Miami job that much more attractive than the PC job?
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWhatever the case, it does not reflect well on the Providence College men’s basketball program or at how the job is perceived nationally.
It was a body blow to PC basketball 3 years ago when Larranaga, a PC alumnus, turned down a chance to leave a mid-major program and conference to revive his alma mater in the nation’s premier conference – the Big East. The news that he has now accepted the Miami job opens up that old wound.
Most Friar fans realize that the PC job is one of the most difficult jobs there is in the Big East. The reasons for that have been well documented and debated in recent years but the fact is that this is the reality that Providence College basketball now lives in.
However, the same can be said for Miami in the ACC. While the Hurricanes may sport a perennial football power in south Florida, college basketball is just an afterthought in that part of the country well behind football, palm trees, South Beach and just about everything else that goes along with that tropical paradise.
So why then did Larranaga decide that this was the right job for him? Maybe it’s because he would like to move to a climate warmer than that in the Washington DC area. Or, at age 61, he is already at retirement age so he figured that he’d join the rest of his generation in an area of the country that has become known as “Heaven’s Waiting Room.”
So while you Friar fans may have been jolted by this news, you need to take solace in the fact that you have a coach who genuinely wants to be at Providence College. For Providence native Ed Cooley, PC is not a stepping stone job, it’s a destination.
If or when Cooley wins, the sting of Larranaga’s decision to turn his back on PC and later accept the Miami job a few years later will be as irrelevant as Charlie Sheen’s “Torpedo of Truth Tour.”
