Citing burnout from NIL, transfer portal and non-stop recruiting, college basketball coaches make big changes
'We are all exhausted,' one coach told CBS Sports amid a crisis that's spooking many and prompting a movement
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'We are all exhausted,' one coach told CBS Sports amid a crisis that's spooking many and prompting a movement
https://www.cbssports.com/writers/matt-norlander/By Matt Norlander
Pessimism is often a defining trait for the finicky creature that is the College Basketball Coach. At times, many seem to almost bask in the anguish the job brings. For plenty, the idea of being successful can't happen unless there's more than a modicum of misery attached. You ain't winning unless you're whining. Catch them at the right moment and these guys can be some of the most entertainingly miserable people you've ever seen. And they know it. Kvetching is caring.
Oakland coach Greg Kampe attests: "Coaches, as a whole, are the most paranoid people I've ever known in my life."
That said, there is a sincere crisis that's afflicting college basketball. It's an annual tradition for coaches to complain about the offseason calendar, but it's seemingly never been worse than now. There is no offseason anymore.
Due to 1) the transfer portal, 2) NIL earning potential for players, 3) the bonus COVID year that's cycling two more seasons, and 4) a recruiting calendar that is both cumbersome and outmoded for the current climate, the collective mood around college basketball isn't grouchiness or agitation — it's despondency.
"Our industry is not sustainable with the current model," one SEC assistant told CBS Sports. "Every coach says so. We are all exhausted."
Recruits and players already in college are also broadly affected. For coaches — and this goes for assistants at low-majors making $35,000 just as much as it does for the multi-millionaire faces of the profession — the masses have never felt stretched this thin.
"The calendar doesn't work. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault. It doesn't work," Towson's Pat Skerry said, and like nearly every coach interviewed for this story, he was quick to admit the obvious. "I think every one of us is overpaid, it's just at different levels."
But money made doesn't avert health issues. Earning a nice paycheck doesn't prevent anxiety, depression or acute loads of stress. There can be a better way. Many coaches aren't seeking sympathy — they're looking for logical reworks. CBS Sports spoke with more than two dozen people within college basketball in the past month about this topic, and it's painstakingly clear that most believe the offseason calendar has lost the plot.
"I'm very concerned about our younger coaches," Auburn's Bruce Pearl said. "I'm concerned about them as dads not seeing their kids in-season, and when the season's over, their wives are expecting to surely see your son play baseball, or your daughter play softball, or see a play. But no. We're talking about marriages and kids. This has been the conversation."
After Kansas' Bill Self was forced to rest and not coach his team in last season's NCAA Tournament because of a medical procedure, Pearl was thrown and went to see his team doctor.