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A List of Potential ETSU Head Men’s Basketball Coaching Candidates
Weren’t we here before?
For the last 20 years, it could generally be presumed East Tennessee State was going to have a good men’s basketball team.
Sure there were exceptions, but ever since Ed DeChellis brought in Zakee Wadood and Jerald Fields in 2000, ETSU has had only two losing seasons.
And one of those was the result of two star players getting kicked off the team for receiving drugs through the mail.
But ETSU’s winning ways are in jeopardy. Jason Shay resigned as ETSU head coach on Tuesday in large part because of the fallout that occurred when the Buccaneers knelt on the court for the playing of the Star Spangled Banner this year.
Simply put, this is taboo in Johnson City, Tennessee, which is part of the Tri-Cities, Tennessee-Virginia television market, perhaps America’s most conservative metropolitan area both politically and culturally.
The area’s cultural and political mindset are so at odds with those of modern college basketball player and coaches that none of quality will want to come to east Tennessee.
It’s not a certainty. Ken Starr was the President of Baylor University just five years ago, and the Bears are in the Final Four.
