By Jim Clark
Like most SW Floridians, I was swept up in Dunk City Mania. It was so much fun watching Coach Andy Enfield and his Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles play an exciting brand of basketball and win a couple of games in the NCAA Tournament. What made it even better was how humble the team was in accepting the national spotlight. This team epitomizes what the NCAA Tournament used to be all about. These are true student-athletes who will finish their college years by entering the workforce, not the NBA draft.
Two weeks ago, 99% of the country had never even heard of FGCU. Since the wins over Georgetown and San Diego State, it was tough to turn on network TV and not find a reference to the school.
While schools like Duke, Louisville, Kansas, and Florida expect to make the Sweet 16 each year and consider it a disappointing season if they don’t, there is something so unique when a “nobody” comes out of nowhere to rattle the status quo. The other bigger named schools that have missed out on national-stage success are looking at the FGCU program and trying to figure out how they can copy it. The obvious answer is to throw a bunch of money at Coach Enfield and see if he can cook up another winning formula of players.
Rumors are already flying that Southern Cal and Minnesota, two schools with past success but not much recently, are ready to offer Enfield a sizable pay increase to leave FGCU for their basketball programs.
A little over a decade ago I lived in Wilmington, NC, and saw a similar mania sweep through SE NC. The University of North Carolina Wilmington Seahawks made it to the Tournament a couple times, even winning a first-round game. The entire area was caught up in Seahawk fever. While UNCW didn’t win their second round game and get the week of national exposure, the win over Southern Cal turned the spotlight to the school for a few hours.
The biggest difference between FGCU and UNCW’s success stories is UNCW’s was a couple of years in the building. The program was steadily advancing each year and finally made it to the NCAA Tournament. FGCU, right now, is a flash-in-the-pan. Six years ago, the program had not played a game at the Division 1 level. Coach Enfield as only had two recruiting classes and it remains to be seen if he has what it takes to build a sustainable program.
As the bigger schools come along with their money and basketball history, it is my hope that Coach Enfield lets the suitors pitch their woo and lets them move along. I have not met Coach Enfield but I get the impression he is a man who is capable of building FGCU into a strong mid-major program that will shake up office pool brackets every couple of years.
As of now, FGCU will lose two players from this year’s team to graduation – Sherwood Brown and Eddie Murray. That means the core of the team, a decent recruiting class, and a couple of transfers will make the Eagles favorites to win the Atlantic Sun championship again and make it to the Tournament.
As someone who has followed smaller college basketball teams for a few years, I know Coach Enfield is going to eventually leave FGCU. It is only a matter of time. That said, I hope he doesn’t leave for a couple of years. This season was special, one-of-a-kind. But it may have just been a case of being in the right place at the right time.
I would like to see Coach Enfield build the FGCU basketball into a program that reloads after each season, not rebuilds. It takes time. I believe he has what it takes to build the FGCU program into one that attracts quality student-athletes who will represent the school right, graduate and win most of the time.
I know it is easy for me to sit here and tell him the right thing to do is to pass up a chance to work at a better-known school, get a significant pay hike, and advance up the coaching hierarchy. But I am sure I am right.
Chances are you can’t name the coaches who were recently fired from Minnesota, Southern Cal or even UCLA. But you can name the head coach of FGCU, and that says a whole heck of a lot.