Dan Wetzel has a column up listing his
Top 5 coaches of all time. Number one is a provocative choice - Don Haskins
of Texas Western/UTEP. He argues that had he not coached at a backwater, he
could have won several titles. #2 is Knight (er, Coach Knight), #3 Rupp, #4
Smith, and #5 Wooden.
Wooden gets "haunted" by a booster who supposedly played players,
yet Adolph Rupp not only had a "long corrupt system of paying players, which gave him an unfair recruiting advantage can be considered a minus on his coaching career,"
his racial history is well known. Yet he gets a pass on racism and not
penalized for cheating as much as Wooden. Both men had more or less a clean shot
to the Final Four, but Wooden won 10 titles, and Rupp 4. Hard to figure
that math.
Possible candidates for the list:
- Clair Bee
- Henry Iba
- Mike Krzyzewski
- Pete Newell
- Clarence Gaines
- John McLendon
If Haskins gets credit for being in a backwater, then surely Gaines and
McLendon get credit too.