I’m new this blog and thought this was as good an opportunity as any to jump into the discourse and respond to your post.

First, regarding your point about walking on to the basketball team, I’m proof that it can be done. I was not a recruited basketball player coming out of high school in NYC. I applied ED to Williams and was accepted. When I matriculated, I decided to try out for the basketball team. I played on the freshman team my first year (I was recovering from a broken wrist) and then played three years on the varsity. I started my last two years and was voted one of two co-captains in my senior year. I’ve found that one of the many great things about athletics at Williams is that a student who has the desire and ability to pursue intercollegiate athlethics is given every opportunity to participate. He/she may not have the talent to start (or make the team for that matter); nonetheless, the opportunity to try out and compete is available. At many college and universities, if you are not a recruited athlete, you don’t have the opportunity to even tryout.

Regarding your points on the career of Coach Maker prior to his hiring, one can only speculate as to why he left Dartmouth. I do know that Dave Faucher was the head coach at Dartmouth during Coach Maker’s 11-year tenure at Dartmouth. Assuming that his ultimate goal was to become a head coach, he may have felt that this goal could only be achieved by moving on from Dartmouth. In addition, while I cannot comment on the basketball program at Samford, both John Beilein (the former head coach at West Virginia when Maker was an asst at WVU and the current head coach at Michigan) and Dana Altman (the head coach at Creighton) are highly respected in the college coaching community and are considered to be two of the better coaching minds in college basketball. The opportunity to learn as an asst coach in these programs certainly broadened Coach Maker’s basketball experience and enhanced his resume.

I will not repeat some of the other comments posted in response, but I will add that given the fact that Coach Maker was a finalist for the Williams job eight years ago and a finalist for the job at Princeton, he’s impressed the various search committees for these respective coaching positions that were highly sought after in the college coaching community.

As a strong supporter of Williams athletics in general and the basketball team in particular, I welcome Coach Maker to the Williams faculty and “family.” He has big shoes to fill, as he follows in the footsteps of both Harry Sheehy and Dave Paulsen. I wish him much success in Williamstown.

Speaking of stories about Williams coaches, great article on Dave Clawson:

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2008/aug/23/student-game-clawson-boils-down-background-basics/

Given the passion of SEC fans (bordering on insanity) I doubt that there are more than 10 Eph alums under more intense scrutiny by more people this fall than Clawson … but if does well in this job (especially given his extensive head coaching experience) he will have his pick of many of the top Div I openings in the country.

In basketball world, Dartmouth is not somewhere you want to be. being a finalist in Princeton’s search is impressive if true.

His dream, clearly, was to run a basketball team at a school with some history of success and perhaps not to land at too big an institution. VMI, Princeton, and Williams all fit that bill. good luck to him and the team.