Whit usually hires through connections and/or comfort level.
Whit spent time at Auburn while Tommy Tuberville was the HC of the football team. At Cincy, Whit hires Tommy to be the HC.
Whit spent time at Missouri where an assistant softball coach named Pete D'Amour happened to be on staff. Whit hires Pete to head up the VT softball program a couple years ago.
Kenny Brooks grew up in the same area as Whit and I am sure they crossed paths and he knew exactly who he was and hired him to run the VT womens hoops program.
My guess, is he had a short list for wrestling and I saw him at the NCAA wrestling championships after Dresser left. He and Desire Francois where both actively around and I am sure talked to a few people. He supposedly also got a lot of feedback from the team on who they wanted as a coach. He obviously interviewed Robie. With his background, my guess is he interviewed Brian Smith at Mizzou. Smith has been there for over 20 years and has a very good program and Whit would obviously known him. I seem to recall, I could be wrong on this, that Smith got a raise/contract extension that same spring that VT was looking to replace Dresser. Connected? I don't know. There were rumors about Kolat. I don't know who else he would have been interested in. I do know this, Robie had a vision and I am sure he was impressive. As soon as he got the job, he called a bunch of SERTC and other donors personally and explained what he wanted to do, what was important, what was going to change, etc. I was sold immediately after that conversation, so I would think between the team backing him and his ideas for the program it had to have been somewhat of an easy decision to move forward with him. Just my 2 cents.
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In response to this post by Hokiefan94)
Posted: 09/28/2020 at 09:33AM