Well, proof is in the pudding as they say. Show me the coaches lining up to coach in NY?
Best Knicks could do was Derek Fisher. Steve Kerr decided Bay Area over NyC.
Free agent players no longer look at NYC as the great destination.
Before you say, well the Knicks suck, um. ... So does St Johns.
James Dolan might be a reason for Steve Kerr to take the job in the Bay Area. But if you're trying to make a point by bringing up one, and not the rest, you're not making a convincing argument. The Bay Area is a nice place to live. It's limited, like Chicago, but it's still pretty nice.
You don't think free agents look at NY as a great place to live? Not that this is proving or disproving your point, but if you haven't noticed, the Yankees have once again a $200 million dollar payroll made almost entirely of free agents.
And one thing you are not considering is just how much damage Harrington did to the St.John's program. People think Jarvis alienated high school coaches? Maybe he did, but that's nothing compared to the reputation Harrington had and completely earned as an unfair and unreasonable SOB. What coach would work for that man? The future of the program will come down to Gempesaw.
Is he here save our program, or destroy it?
Good for Mike Repole for refusing to accept mediocrity. I can't imagine he's made so much money by an it's better than it was attitude.
The Yankees can and HAVE to overpay for every free agent in order to get them to play here. Other than Derek jeter name one guy who has taken a hometown discount?
So Id say this point is irrelevant as one could argue it's the money (or the history). We have neither.
It's a well known fact that 10 years ago, when they were buying everyone under the sun, Carlos Beltran offered to take less money from the Yankees than the Mets offered him. Do you people really think NY is such a hole? If it's a such a hole why is it so expensive to live here?
In addition, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill all took less to stay. The Yankees are being outbid by Chicago, Boston and Seattle because they are finished with overpaying for players. Those examples, which is actually the present day, grossly overpaid to pry them away from NY.
The one thing Lavin has done better than anything else is he sold St.John's as NY, not as some tiny mom and pop school. And that's exactly how St.John's should be selling their head coaching position. Lavin likes a good restaurant. He likes culture. If a head coach likes to go out and kill his own dinner, ok then, stay in Ohio. It's not a fit.
Saying that people don't want to come to NY because it's a hole is insane. You may not want to but quite a few people do. The head coach, as we've seen with Lavin doesn't have to live in Queens. His digs in Soho are probably pretty damn nice.
The Yankees are not done overpaying for players. Trust me. They temporarily avoided it this year and this year alone (let's remember they severely overpaid for Jacoby Ellsbury just last season...) because they have way too many grossly overpaid players who aren't producing and the steinbrenners are sick of paying an insane luxury tax for a team that isn't a contender. This will all change back to status quo once a couple of these albatrosses come off the books.
And every single player you named who took a hometown discount was already a champion yankee by the time he did so. Duke or Kentucky is as analogous to the Yankees as you can get right now. St. John's is like the mets. And disregarding any players who get paid under the table or whatever, the way schools differentiate themselves to these kids are 1) chances to get them to pro quickly (ie the coaches ability to improve them and market them), 2) facilities, and 3) location/campus life
You are absolutely right that we kill it in location if a kid can be sold on NYC. But lots of kids from the city want to get away esp now that it's so easy to keep in touch w anyone anywhere, and many kids not from city might be hesitant about playing in the biggest city. And they aren't residing in plush dorms on Washington square park like nyu kids. It's queens. Our facilities have been improved but still we could do better. And our coach obviously is able to sell some kids but hasn't been consistently selling the big guns.
I think this is a high risk high reward job but a lot of coaches are scared of the risk, I'm sure. Is lavin and norm before him not recruiting well because of lavin and norm or because of the facilities and school and location? Also every single one of our coaches who failed has NEVER coached in a major conference again. So basically you come here to die, so the risk seems a lot higher than the reward. You need a coach so confident in himself to come here that the city won't swallow him whole and the pressure won't either AND he won't get lazy enjoying all nyc has to offer rather than doing what he is paid to do most of the time. Calipari was like that but we turned him down. Perhaps a Hurley is like that but I don't know.
Point is it makes a lot of sense why Donovan and any other big time coach would not jump here. It also is highly desirable to someone bc I truly believe if they succeed here they would be on the short list wherever they want to go (Hurley, perhaps Duke), etc. But it seems like a super high risk and a super high reward but the reward has not been attained by anyone since Lou. That's daunting.
And let's not forget 2M here makes you just another very well off person of which there are many in NYC in the scheme of things. 2M in most of the rest of the country makes you an absolute baller stud who can afford the nicest house and do the nicest thing at all times without any concern. Let's not forget that.