Today SLU looks like a tawdry three-ring circus.
Three takes on this from the PD:
On Tuesday morning, Soderberg met with athletics director Cheryl Levick and was told he was fired.
There was no official comment on the change, other than a five-paragraph statement, which, perhaps tellingly, did not include a comment from Levick, which is the norm in this situation. Levick was unavailable, according to a school spokesman.
That is out of character for Levick, who has been willing to address almost every issue, and would be unusual for any AD making a change at a high-profile position such as basketball coach. That has led to speculation that the decision to fire Soderberg came from higher up on the university chain. Levick reports to the school's provost, Joe Weixlmann, who reports to school president Fr. Lawrence Biondi. They are the only other people with any direct control over the department.
...
The timing is awkward. Changes in the coaching ranks have largely sorted themselves out by early April. There have been changes made at 50 other Division I schools recently, many in response to their coaches being lured away by other schools. In the past five years only one Division I men's coach has been fired after April 15 — Larry Eustachy at Iowa State in 2003, when he made national news by partying after a game with University of Missouri students.
SLU still has three scholarships to offer for next season, but the timing makes it likely that the recruits they were still in the running for will choose to go elsewhere. No decision has been made on the fate of SLU's three assistants, although Angres Thorpe, Soderberg's senior assistant, was named interim head coach.
Colin Relphorde, the father of one of SLU's recruits, Marcus Relphorde, said he hadn't heard of Soderberg's firing when reached by phone. He said the family had talked about Soderberg's status with Levick during their visit, and that she said that while she couldn't say with certainty, "she planned on retaining him for some time and they were pleased with what he's done. That was significant in our decision-making."
This was the take of Vahe Gregorian: Soderberg Move Prompts Questions
St. Louis University's firing Tuesday of men's basketball coach Brad Soderberg nearly six weeks after SLU's season ended was an oddity and an absurdity to many in the coaching community.
Only one other coach in the last five years was fired after April 15, according to Post-Dispatch research, and that was Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy after he became embroiled in a scandal.
As news trickled out to the college basketball world, many assumed SLU would only have made such a move if it had a blockbuster replacement in line. "That's the only thing that would make sense," said one of nearly a dozen Division I coaches and administrators interviewed Tuesday.
But SLU apparently had no such strategy or arrangement in place unless a grand surprise awaits. Details about Soderberg's dismissal are murky, since SLU has said it won't address the matter — another rare, if not unprecedented, stance that one coach called "little kid stuff."
And the school's curious treatment of a man respected and considered honorable could affect its ability to attract a new coach. If a change was necessary, the prudent approach would have been to do it immediately after the season. By now, the coaching carousel has whirled to a virtual halt.
And, most pointedly, here is Bernie Miklasz's take: Biondi's gutless hit-and-run job embarrasses SLU
SLU can do better than Soderberg, but it isn't that simple. Had this move been made several weeks ago, a new coach could have gotten a head start on the first official day of this recruiting period. But now the next coach will be off to a late start and forced to pick through leftover recruits.
At least the new coach can get a jump on the next recruiting period and possibly find talented players to take into the new arena.
But whether you are pro-Brad or anti-Brad, I think most of us can agree on a couple of things: (1) the timing of his firing was bizarre and nonsensical; (2) we would like an explanation. Instead, the SLU president, the Rev. Lawrence Biondi, went into hiding Tuesday.
Multiple sources told me Biondi's muscle was behind this ouster. Multiple sources told me Biondi cut athletics director Cheryl Levick out of the loop, and humiliated her in the process by firing a coach she had backed.
Multiple sources told me Levick had assured the parents of potential recruits that Soderberg's job was safe — and now SLU's word is dirt. Multiple sources told me that at least one prominent booster had Biondi's attention and talked him into dumping Soderberg, even at this late date, which went against the wishes of virtually all key figures inside the SLU administration.
And after Biondi did all of this, he wrapped himself in the thin paper of a flimsy news release and scurried into retreat. What a profile in courage this Biondi is. I wanted to give him a chance to explain all this, but he'd already disappeared into his hiding place and couldn't be reached for comment.
In major-college athletics, you won't find a more embarrassing and unprofessional operation than the dictatorship that Biondi runs at SLU. He fires a coach, then ducks out, unwilling to face the heat or even polite questions. And no one on the campus is brave enough to stand up to the bully boss. No one at SLU has the will to put a name, a reputation, behind this Soderberg termination.
After another disgraceful chapter in its basketball history, SLU will begin another coaching search. And after shameful episode, how can Levick stay in this job? How can Levick possibly hire the next coach? By taking away Levick's power as the direct supervisor of the men's basketball program, Biondi destroyed any credibility Levick can bring to the hiring process. Potential candidates will laugh at the notion that Levick has any authority, or that she can protect them from her meddling boss. She's done.
Biondi is unequivocally in charge of basketball. And this tells us a lot. Because Biondi is the boss, SLU basketball continues to wallow in mediocrity, many years after his blustery, laughably hollow pledge to have a top 50 men's basketball team.
And because Biondi is the boss, the SLU coaching job is among the worst in NCAA Division I. Tuesday's gutless hit-and-run job confirmed that all over again.
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