Ray Anderson is not afraid of change. That should put ASU’s current head coaches on alert.
ASU has had five head coaching changes in the little over a year since Anderson was hired. Two lost their jobs just within the last two weeks: swimming coach Dorsey Tierney-Walker was fired Tuesday, a week after after men’s basketball coach Herb Sendek was let go.
Both coaches were entrenched in their positions: Sendek's worked at ASU for nine seasons and Tierney-Walker for six.
In firing them, Anderson backed up his commitment to winning. If a coach doesn't win — one of Anderson's four criteria for evaluating coaches — he or she will be out of a job.
He didn’t have to change coaches. Sendek’s 2014-15 squad was supposed to be bad after losing its top three scorers from a season ago, and the team showed steady improvement to finish fifth in the conference. It was one of his better coaching performances, outside of the loss in the Pac-12 Tournament.
Tierney-Walker had a young squad with potential, and she dealt with the challenge of rebuilding the men’s program from scratch after it was cut.
But Anderson had all the evidence he needed. Neither could get ASU where he wants to go among the nation's elite. Sendek’s teams only had two NCAA Tournament appearances (one win) in nine seasons and Tierney-Walker’s teams couldn't compete with the likes of Pac-12 schools California, USC, Stanford and Arizona. The men's team didn't even score in the NCAA meet in 2015.
Last year ASU had three head coaching changes after gymnastics coach John Spini retired, while wrestling’s Shawn Charles and baseball’s Tim Esmay resigned. They were replaced by Rene Lyst, Zeke Jones and Tracy Smith, respectively.
Wrestling finished second at the Pac-12 meet in 2015, its best since 2006, before the period when the program was briefly cut. The team also has the No. 1 recruiting class. Baseball is ranked in the top-10 and on track to host an NCAA Regional, which it hasn't done since 2011.
However, gymnastics finished the season about 25 ranks lower than any other Pac-12 school. The Gym Devils were hurt by the year-long wait in 2014 to find out who the new coach would be, and ASU doesn't have any freshmen on this year's team.
But Anderson should be encouraged by the overnight success from two of his three new coaches.
He showed he could immediately turn around two programs, and it wouldn't be a surprise if more change is on the way.
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