Darrin Horn has been at South Carolina five months now. He swears he's the same guy and doing things pretty much the same way he did them at Western Kentucky, and I suppose that's true. But last Thursday he was at an SEC football game for the first time as an SEC coach, and it's moments like those where the differences between the past and the present are hard to deny.
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| After taking WKU to the Sweet 16, Darrin Horn is at South Carolina. (US Presswire) |
So yeah, Darrin Horn is on another level these days.
His status and paycheck also prove it.
And though his story is unique in that it is about a man who cashed-in after leading his alma mater to the Sweet 16 last March, it is also a reminder of just how wacky the profession of college coaching has become. And by wacky, I mean delicate and unpredictable and, often times, completely out of the hands of the coaches. For proof, consider that Horn was actually feeling pressure at Western Kentucky last season, five years into the job. Nevermind that he had won at least 22 games in his second, third and fourth years, that he was in the middle of his best season ever. At Western Kentucky the goal is to make the NCAA tournament and Horn had not done that. Furthermore, there was no guarantee he would make it in his fifth season either if he didn't lead the Hilltoppers to the Sun Belt tournament title. So the powerbrokers were getting antsy and Horn understood why.
"When you're at a place that has great tradition and high expectations and the expectation is to make the tournament ... getting there is something that is important," Horn said. "Realistically, we needed to do that. So you put pressure on yourself because you want to have that success and, absolutely, you know the pressure is there."
Western Kentucky won the Sun Belt tournament, of course.
Then the Hilltoppers got a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Then they upset Drake on Ty Rogers' buzzer-beating 3-pointer, and just like that the perception of Horn changed greatly. Suddenly, the guy who a month earlier was on pseudo-shaky ground at Western Kentucky was among the hottest young coaching candidates in America. He subsequently became the primary target of South Carolina and was introduced April 1. A few weeks later he was conducting speaking engagements with the Ol' Ball Coach, and do you see how fast things change in this profession?
I mean, just think about it.
If Jason Richards sinks a 3-pointer at the buzzer to lead Davidson past Kansas last March might Bill Self now be the coach at Oklahoma State. Yes, I think he would. But because Richards missed that shot Kansas advanced and subsequently won the national title. So Self stayed at Kansas. And Travis Ford got to take the Oklahoma State job, which opened the UMass job for Derek Kellogg -- meaning Kellogg is no longer an assistant at Memphis, at least in part, because Richards missed a shot against Kansas.
Unreal, isn't it?
If Kelvin Sampson doesn't go cell phone-crazy at Indiana might Tom Crean still be at Marquette? Yeah, probably. But Sampson couldn't stay off the phone. So Indiana fired him, lured Crean away from Marquette and Marquette responded by hiring assistant Buzz Williams -- meaning Williams is now the head coach of a Top 25 team from the Big East, at least in part, because Sampson conducted three-way calls at Indiana.
