Basketball Basketball Coaching Changes
- Thread starter Alum-Ni
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Surprising move to go to Norfolk from Norris. I know it’s a class up, but Norris is in a great spot.
I tend to agree. I look at Norris as Elkhorn in about 1996. It's only going to keep growing and the level of support there is very strong. You would expect them to keep getting stronger each and every year.
With that said, Class A is Class A. For some coaches, that's a huge goal to make it to that level.
in my opinion knowing Dave Oman one of the best coaches ever in the state of Nebraska, never should have got run out of town in Norfolk, and another legend retires in mr mendlick another one of the good ones. I wish them both alot of happiness in retirement from a sport they loved to teach to young people.
Coach Mendlick shouldn't have been run out at West Point Central Catholic now known as GACC either.
It's a move from 38% (Norfolk) free-reduced lunch to 10% (Norris) FR-lunch. That figures to about 4.5-times greater chance at success at the state level. That could be a reason. I think if you tracked successful coaches you would see a lot of migration from high-FR schools to low-FR schools.
Great point. And from a non-metro school in Class A to a metroish in Class B where kids have all resources of Lincoln just miles away.
Correct me if I am wrong but didnt Norfolks coach go to Crete and the Norris coach go to Norfolk?
Siske went from Scottsbluff to Norfolk. This spring he took the Crete job.
Shelsta from Norris took the job in Norfolk
I’m just unfamiliar with this, explain the stats behind that? Or are these numbers flipped?
Why would a coach leave to go a school with more kids who are on free-reduced lunch program?
Really excited to see what Jimmy does with that social studies program!
Well, I obviously just got screwed up on which coach was going where.
On the larger point, I'm going from the numbers I developed for a presentation to the NSAA classification committee a couple of years ago. There was a lot of private/public talk at the time, but what my research showed was that the top factors for predicting future athletic success were:
- district student poverty as measured by free-reduced lunch
- past success (specifically the five previous years)
My supposition was that the purpose of classification was to create the best level playing fields. The numbers to me meant that continuing to create classes just by number of students wasn't doing that in the best, most efficient manner.
The most surprising numbers to me were the ones that showed that being in the bottom quarter of your class in enrollment was not a predictor of lack of success. The numbers for the different quarters of enrollment were not statistically significant.
I got a lot of push back (largely from a couple private school coaches that I believe didn't really read my numbers but rather were reacting to the general conversation in the state about the advantages their schools had) mainly saying that good coaches win. Since then, it has been my desire to study coaches moves and see if there is a pattern of coaches moving toward low F/R lunch schools which would mean that those schools have better opportunities to bring in best coaches. I haven't been able to find the time and/or method to do that.
That's what I jumped on, erroneously, the other day.
Looking at the three moves now, the Motz move from Columbus to Norris fits my priors. The move from Norris to Norfolk, is opposite of what I would predict, and the Norfolk to Crete (38% to 39%) move is a wash according to my theory, but flies in the face of what I consider conventional wisdom of coaching moves (i.e. that coaches are climbing the ladder to bigger schools).
Here's the slideshow I put together for the committee presentation.
And here's the podcast episode I did to talk about it at about the same time.
My thesis was basically that NSAA schools should develop a classification formula that melted enrollment with poverty factors and success factors. I certainly didn't have a specific formula but was hoping they would take that ball and run with it.
My secret hope was they would use that paradigm change in classification as a chance to return Nebraska to 4 or maybe 5 classes instead of our current 6/7 system.
Spoiler alert: the committee punted and didn't address poverty or success factors.
i highly doubt that the norfolk coach who is going to wherever he is going was doing this based on free lunches and such, pretty sure coaches are not looking at that at all. it's about talent and what's best for his family or his individual needs not something based on how many kids get free lunches, i could be wrong but who the hell knows anyways
Giltner head basketball is open.
Coach Ortmeier took a social studies job at his alma mater, Centennial.
Coach Ortmeier took a social studies job at his alma mater, Centennial.