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00:00Langton Corsi is the esteemed columnist for the Sporting News.
00:08You can catch him on Fox Sports during the college basketball season and the Big Ten
00:12Network, which he now owns, I'm hearing.
00:14He owns a huge majority stake in the network.
00:18And he's also on the take for the Indiana Hoosiers in both football and basketball with
00:23his ties to the Hoosier state, even though he's a Pittsburgher through and through and
00:29also a huge Steeler fan like I am.
00:32Thank God for Mike DeCorsi.
00:34We've been blessed to have him on C2C every week for several years now.
00:37I think it's like 25 years straight he's been doing the show.
00:41Mike, Tony Bennett walked away from a fantastic coaching job and career at Virginia in Charlottesville.
00:52I mean, the guy did it all there.
00:54When he walked away initially, when we broke the story on here, we thought maybe he was
01:01sick or something.
01:02We didn't know why, but, you know, hours later we would find out basically it's because of
01:07what's happened to college athletics that's, you know, made him walk away.
01:13Could you believe it?
01:15I'm not surprised.
01:16There had been a lot of discussion about the possibility that he might go in this direction.
01:20The surprise, obviously, is that he declined to do it in the aftermath of the previous
01:27season, signed a contract extension in June, and then decides to do it on the very eve
01:34of the season.
01:35Gosh, he even attended ACC Media Day.
01:37Why would you go through that if you didn't want to coach?
01:40But he did.
01:41And I, you know, my position on this is really simple.
01:46That the changes in college sports that he acknowledged drove him out into retirement
01:55from college coaching are, okay, so they're problematic for him, and they certainly make
02:00it really difficult, really consuming, I think is the word, for college coaches.
02:06It's very difficult.
02:07You have to be on high alert all the time, and that's a really exhausting life.
02:11But what about the changes that occurred in the 15 years prior to that, Scott, when
02:18the University of Texas decided that paying their football coach at the time, Mack Brown,
02:23$3 million, which was more than anybody else was making, wasn't enough, and that he had
02:27to be paid $5 million.
02:29That massive increase set off an absolute firestorm of salary increases in college coaching.
02:36And as a result, when Tony Bennett was finishing his career for the last good number of years,
02:42he was making over $4 million a year.
02:45And over his last 11 years, he made $38 million.
02:50So those changes allowed him to have the freedom to say, you know what, I'm done.
02:55So there are changes that impact everything in this equation.
03:00And all we focus on are the changes recently that have granted a significant amount of
03:06power to the athletes, and not the changes that precipitated that, that granted an inordinate
03:14amount of money to the coaches.
03:16Do you think that's why Jay Wright walked away, too?
03:20He had all that money, and he just didn't need it anymore, any of the nonsense?
03:26Now I understand what you're saying.
03:27It's not just because of NIL and paying players.
03:31This is a lot deeper than that.
03:33But I mean, here's a guy that, you know, what didn't he win?
03:38He won the NCAA tournament.
03:40What didn't he win?
03:41He won several ACC titles.
03:43He won more games than anyone ever at that school.
03:47Honestly, what didn't he accomplish?
03:50And you're right, I didn't like the way, fair enough, it's his choice.
03:56But the way he handled it, I thought was weak, right before the season starts.
04:01And then he went through the motions of signing a new deal, and then he went to the media
04:05days.
04:06I mean, what was he thinking?
04:08Like he, don't tell me he made his mind up in the morning at breakfast and then made
04:12this decision by the afternoon.
04:14He had to have been drumming this up.
04:16Well, the way he explained it was that he and his wife took a weekend vacation, and
04:22they talked about it a lot and came to this decision.
04:25I think Tony Bennett's a wonderful man.
04:27I've known him for 25 years and couldn't like him more.
04:31He's terrific.
04:33The trap you get into when you're in this circumstance where you're thinking about walking
04:38away is that you're going to impact somebody negatively one way or the other.
04:44If he had left in April, his coaching staff, his entire support staff, would have basically
04:49been out of a job.
04:50And that's problematic for them.
04:52He leaves now, and the players who all signed up to play for Tony Bennett and everything
04:57that entailed, then they are out of a coach.
05:00So there's really no good time to do this.
05:06I can understand why people complained about it, and I understand why there is another
05:10side to it as well.
05:12But for me, the real thing comes down to is that college basketball is a terrific sport.
05:20And the players do have an exorbitant amount of power now because of instant eligibility.
05:26What we use colloquially as the transfer portal.
05:29The portal itself is not the problem.
05:30The problem relative to the coaches and the stability of the sport is the immediate eligibility
05:37any time you want to leave.
05:39That's the problem.
05:40And the solution to that is to make the athletes employees.
05:44But that creates a whole other set of problems, and it's why the universities and colleges
05:49aren't really all that eager to do that.
05:52So in the article, you talked about all these guys that stopped when they were in their
05:5770s.
05:58That guy's nowhere near that.
06:00And you talked about how overwhelming the job is, how draining it is, and how stressful
06:06it is.
06:08He was a great teacher as a coach.
06:15There's nothing he can do to impress me with this decision.
06:17I'm sorry.
06:18I'm not going to sit here and agree with any of it.
06:21I think he effed the whole program up nice and juicy.
06:25And what's going to happen in the aftermath of his bloodletting here?
06:29I mean, who's taking over?
06:30Remember, though, Scott, if he had left in April, they would have had to go find a whole
06:35new roster because just about everybody that was wearing Virginia colors last year would
06:41have left.
06:42And then they would have had a difficult time assembling another roster.
06:45So that would have really put the problem at that spot.
06:48I think there may be some players who haven't spent a redshirt year who could, if they wished,
06:53decide to just say, OK, I'm not playing this year and I'm going to go somewhere else.
06:58But they may decide that they know Ron Sanchez.
07:02They've been around him now for five, six months.
07:04Maybe they'll decide that and some for many more than that.
07:07But the new ones, the new players have met Ron and know him and have worked with him.
07:11And maybe they like him enough to stick around.
07:14So I don't think that he gave the program a rough ride.
07:18I do think that the players who had committed for him and who returned for him, I think
07:24that's tough.
07:25But like I said, somebody was going to get a tough deal in this.
07:29I just look at it, the main thing for me, the main takeaway for me is that there are
07:35lots of college coaches who still want to do this.
07:38The fact that Roy retired at 70 and Nick Saban retired, I think, 72 and Mike Krzyzewski
07:44retired at 75, it's not an unusual age to retire.
07:48That's pretty much what most people would have done with that amount of wealth and that
07:53age and experience.
07:55But there are lots of coaches who are in their 70s who are still going.
07:57I mean, Tom Izzo will turn 70 this year.
08:00Jim Laranega is in his 70s.
08:02Leonard Hamilton is 76.
08:04They're still hanging on.
08:05Why are they still doing it if it's so bad?
08:09I know that it's tough.
08:11I know that it's rougher than it's been.
08:13And it was always a difficult job because of the recruiting calendar.
08:17But I look at the fact that there's always somebody who wants to do it.
08:23College basketball 50 years ago, nearly 50 years ago, survived the departure of John
08:27Wooden.
08:28And what happened, Scott?
08:30You know, it got way more popular.
08:32Way more popular.
08:33So I just think that college basketball will survive Tony Bennett as well.
08:38Yeah, I don't think UCLA ever got better than John Wooden.
08:43I'm sorry.
08:44And here's another thing.
08:45They're already trying to push me out the door, Mike, let alone you.
08:50And I'm not even old.
08:51People keep telling me I'm not old.
08:53Well, I'm not old, but I'm 59.
08:54Now 59, I'm washed my ass.
08:57OK, can I make it to 67 so I can get that check in my mailbox?
09:02For Christ's sakes, honestly.
09:04And Ron Sanchez, who is that?
09:07I don't even know who that is.
09:09Don't even start with me with Ron Sanchez.
09:12Just go watch the Steelers beat the Giants Monday night.
09:14Stay out of my basketball affairs.
09:16I don't really want to talk hoops with you until it really starts.