YOUNG HARRIS, Ga. – The “biggest story” for women’s basketball [the past couple of weeks] may not be the NCAA Division I women’s final four but, once again, the issue of hiring practices for women’s coaches across the nation and, more disturbingly, the hiring practices in the best NCAA conference in the nation.
This time it’s at the University of Arkansas, where Jimmy Dykes, former coach and ESPN analyst, has been named the Razorbacks’ head coach. Coach Dykes has not coached in 21 years, has never been a head coach and has never coached on the women’s side of the game. It is best to sum up this hire using Coach Dykes’ own words to point out the obvious: “I promise to rely on help from my assistant coaches to help with the areas of the college game that I am not familiar with yet.”
The University of Arkansas, a member of the prestigious Southeastern Conference, just hired a coach that must depend on his assistants to teach him the women’s game. Huh? What message did the University of Arkansas just send to all the men and women who have dedicated their lives and careers to the game of women’s basketball?
Mission statements across the nation from power conferences indicate that they promote the spirit of fairness, adhere to principles of integrity, support the total development of the student-athlete and produce enlightened leadership for tomorrow. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
I am sure that Coach Dykes is a wonderful person and a fantastic University of Arkansas alumnus, and by no means is this an attack on him personally. It is, however, an implication that the vice chancellor and director of athletics, Jeff Long, believes that a man who has not coached in 21 years is more capable than today’s men and women who have committed their careers to women’s basketball.