New KU women's coach ...



  • Here’s what it’s like to be Brandon Schneider. Have to assume Self goes through a lot of same tasks daily …

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  • @Jesse-Newell

    Really worthwhile read. Thanks for linking us up to your story! He sounds like a great coach and I’m anxious to see him develop KU women’s basketball!



  • @Jesse-Newell

    I like this coach! Tough task but I’d like him to be the next geno auriemma



  • Schneider was a heck of a coach at the D2 level. It’s not D1, but he did win a national title during his stint.

    The question is going to be on the recruiting trail. Can he sign the caliber of player necessary to compete nationally. That was Hendrickson’s undoing. She simply wasn’t consistent in signing enough high caliber talent.



  • @justanotherfan Bonnie’s biggest issue wasn’t getting talent into Lawrence. It was managing and keeping the talent in Lawrence. KU consistently significantly underachieved under Bonnie, and the number of people who transferred out was abnormally high for a non JuCo program.



  • Bonnie underachieved during the season and overachieved in post-season, but not often enough…



  • Hard to decide what’s a worse discussion topic … the ever boring Cheick Diallo saga or women’s basketball?



  • @HighEliteMajor We’re counting on you! Come up with something interesting for us to discuss. 🎱



  • Go Schneider!

    IMO, the Diallo saga is a much worse topic, but I actually enjoy women’s basketball. So shoot me… but they play the game played closer to the way Naismith envisioned it than the current men’s game.

    How 'bout them Chiefs?!



  • @justanotherfan must be doing something right. heard the other night he had a top 20 recruiting class here his 1st year, should be interesting



  • @nuleafjhawk you weren’t the guy in the Salina movie theater that shot himself in the leg? Thank God he didn’t hurt anyone but himself!



  • Right now my focus is on only one thing…

    No… not that!

    Ha… still no!

    Keep it clean!

    One clue: 7:07pm tomorrow night!



  • @Crimsonorblue22 To greatly understate - I’m not a huge proponent of concealed carry. I think we tried the whole gun toting thing a hundred and some years ago and it didn’t work out well then, I can’t imagine it’s going to work out well now. We ain’t got any smarter since the Dodge City days.

    And you’re right to thank God - it was a miracle no one else got hurt.



  • @drgnslayr The first commercial during “The Voice” ?



  • @nuleafjhawk well said!



  • @nuleafjhawk

    Are you peeking into our windows at night?

    My wife made me start watching “The Voice” a few years ago. Now I enjoy it, too. She also made me start watching “So You Think You Can Dance”… Now I’m just as addicted as she is.

    Tonight is the beginning of the “win virus”… spreading north of Lawrence, at Kauffman Stadium. Rumors think the virus will spread quickly down into Lawrence and reach it’s peak in the first week of April.



  • @Jesse-Newell Hey, that was great! Im gonna be watching the womens team closer now, hope they make some noise in the Big 12!



  • @drgnslayr are you watching, dancing w/the stars?



  • @Crimsonorblue22

    We catch that now and then, not quite as dedicated to that one.





  • @Jesse-Newell

    Good to hear from you.

    I am usually gender neutral on hires. But until KU men’s basketball commits to hiring a woman, which I really don’t see happening the few two centuries, because we haven’t even had an African American head coach a decade plus after vile UK had one, I would like for KU to hire the best available woman. It unseemly for KU TO BE REGRESSIVE IN BOTH SPORTS.

    That being said, he seems like a good guy and a good coach.



  • @jaybate-1.0 But none of Self’s assistants are white. I really don’t see not having a black head coach in KU’s past a big deal because of how rarely the job is open, also I don’t believe Duke or UNC has ever had a black HC before either for the record. I do believe there will be a female head coach of a men’s basketball program within the next decade at a small conference school and it will trickle upwards from there.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10

    It makes it sound even worse when you try to rationalize it.

    Are four African-Americans on the bench progress or the number Self has to have to convince African American recruits and parents that it’s safe to go to a school that has never hired an African American head coach in over a century. If I were an African American, I would really wonder about that. What the hell, I might say, might as well go play in Dixie with the crackers where at least it’s warm. The head coaches are all crackers at KU, Duke and UNC! At least UK hired Tubby once. May go there for a visit, son, the dad might say.

    How many good young white assistants aren’t getting a shot, because KU has to have 4 black assistants to make up for never hiring a black head coach?

    There is no free lunch on this.

    Prejudice mucks everything up.

    LB had a black assistant coach in 1985 or so. This is flipping 2015. We broke the assistant coach colorline quite a long time ago.

    Duke and UNC are disgraceful about not having hired an African American HC, too, But then their state fought for slavery. I expect a little more out of KU and Kansas.

    Hell! Even Fizzouri has had two black head coaches!

    It’s embarrassing.

    These indifferent–we’ve done enough–attitudes are what are forcing Tubby Smith to organize the black head coaches Association outside of the NCAA (which has its own committee on the issue also) to try to regain lost ground on the number of African-Americans coaching in Division I the last few years.

    Every time we drag our feet on this as a culture, eventually we pay for it with inefficient quotas. The quotas are either government imposed, and/or sometimes the quotas take the form of redundant coaching associations that then make counterveiling alliances with big shoe and watchdog outfits like the drake group.

    If we just loosened up and did the right thing, we would never have to have the sorts of inefficient redundant associations and countervailing alliances. if we just loosened up and did the right thing, we would never have to go through this crap.

    But we are talking about the head coaching position and whomever he may be has a lot of organizational clout and a bully pulpit influencing where and who get juicy contracts and favors in the basketball revenue hog trough. And people have to identify with him to be big donors.

    So there are a lot more factors than bench coaching and recruiting shaping the call and there in the prejudices operate.





  • @jaybate-1.0 KU’s realistically had 2 maybe 3 opportunities to hire a black coach in men’s basketball. It’ll happen one day, but hasn’t exactly a lot of opportunities to do so in men’s basketball and KU does have a good track record of hiring minorities in other sports to where there’s not really a reason to believe there’s anything questionable going on with KU’s hiring practices as far as race goes.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10

    Absolutely, so what you’re really trying to avoid talking about is why were hiring a man for the coach of the women. . By rights, we should wait a century or more to hire a man for the women’s team. It’s only fair. There is no rush to hire a man for the women’s team.



  • @jaybate-1.0 Why does it matter if Schneider is a man or woman? If he was deemed the best fit for the opening, then hire him. If the best candidate to fill the men’s opening when Bill Self moves on is a woman, then hire her. I know Tennessee approached Pat Summit for the men’s opening on at least one occasion and she turned the position down.



  • KU should hire the best “person” for the job regardless of color or gender, period. I am all for equal opportunity but I am not in favor of quotas. I certainly hope Coach Self hired his assistant because they were the best qualified individuals for the job and not because they were black; implying they were hired because of the color of their skin diminished their individual achievements and does them an injustice.

    BTW, KU had African American coaches long before Larry Brown, as you recall, Lafayette Norwood was an assistant coach to Ted Owens in the late 1970s. Also, the women’s program, has had African American coaches before, Marian Washington was head coach for 31 years and Lynette Woodward, former standout KU player was an assistant coach and interim head coach after Marian Washington retired due to heath issues. Marian Washington coached KU twice as long a ll the other coaches combined. Brandon Schneider is the first male coach (other than Naismith that coached the women’s team for 8 games in 1903) of the women’s team.

    So much for racism and sexism.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10

    It matters because it’s a woman’s basketball team and KU WONT EVEN CONSIDER HIRING A WOMAN COACH FOR THE MEN’S TEAM.

    DO YOU REALLY NOT SEE THE ASYMMETRIC UNFAIRNESS?



  • @JayHawkFanToo said:

    KU should hire the best “person” for the job regardless of color or gender, period. I am all for equal opportunity but I am not in favor of quotas

    This is comical and tragic in 2015.

    KU won’t consider a woman for the men’s basketball team. It never offered Pat Summit the job and she was better than Ted, Larry, Roy, and Bill and everyone knows it. She had no peer except maybe Wooden. She would have kicked the nuts off Konsonants 9 times out of ten. She was the best and KU never tried to hire her for the KU men’s job. And that’s a PERIOD.

    And if you were really against quotas and for equal opportunity you would insist Self step aside with his now independent wealth and tell CBernie to get the best qualified woman in the men’s head coaching position tomorrow. 51% of our population are women and there hasn’t been a single woman as men’s head coach at KU in over a century. If you don’t like quotas, stop forcing them to be used. For god’s sakes at least let a woman be head coach of women’s ball, if you won’t let them coach the men’s team! And there’s got to be a few African American men’s coaches as qualified as Schneider, right?

    Help me, help me, help me, I think I’m going insane!

    I HATE quotas, but I LOVE quotas compared to letting this horse manure go on! If Americans had done the right thing about race and gender even just a century ago I would never have had to put up with all these quotas in my life. Everyone hates quotas, especially women and blacks. They hate living in a culture that has to be forced WITH QUOTAS to do the right thing.

    Hire the best, like Pat Summit, or John McLendon, then WE don’t have to be treated like hood wearing scum, or mysoginists. DO THE RIGHT THING AND WE DONT HAVE TO BE FORCE FED QUOTAS to make us do the right thing.

    See, I’m fed up with having to put up with quotas, because I am willing to hire the best, but too many others haven’t been. If we had hired John McLendon when we should have, instead of Harp, or Owens, or LB, or Roy, this would all be behind us. Same with Pat Summit. And I can guarandamnty ya we would have more rings with those two substituted for Harp, Owens and Roy than we have now. Several more.

    P.S. I was probably the first UDK reporter to interview Marion Washington one on one at length. She was a helluva woman. And she knew the game. Not a great coach but a good one. She knew enough to put a saddle on Lynette.

    P.P.S: “So much for racism and sexism.” HOWLING! Peabody here. We’re in the way back machine, Sherman. It’s 1960 again.

    P.P.P.S: And yes I knew about Coach Norwood with Miranda between him and Ted. If you wish hard, he might even comment here. Don’t know WHAT he might say. Might say he’s going fishin and he’s too old for this shizzle. Whatever, I’m doubting he’s going to say, yep, so much for racism and sexism.



  • @jaybate-1.0 Asymmetric CONSPIRACIES at work?



  • While I do not think that KU must hire a female to coach women’s basketball, arguing that the best person should get the job rather than examining minority candidates is the type of approach that often excludes minority candidates.

    Minority candidates often are not given high level jobs, and often end up taking some of the worst jobs, or jobs that are not prone to advance, because they aren’t of the correct pedigree. As a result, when comparing resumes, those candidates are often thought to not measure up. I believe this is the point that @jaybate-1.0 is making.

    No one blinks an eye at hiring a male to coach women’s basketball. But if a female were hired as the head coach of a D1 men’s team, there would be some that would question if she was the best candidate. Some would say “how can she recruit?” or “How will she relate to male players” etc. But hiring a man doesn’t generate these questions.

    I’m not saying Schneider was not the right candidate. I’m saying that when other jobs open up, will all candidates be looked at the same, or will certain candidates be elevated because they have the right background, etc.



  • I thought we hired a black football coach a few years back. I think we all want to win games and if we could hire a Chinese midget to do that I would not care. I don’t care who coaches these kids if they are of good character and develop their potential. If we need better housing for the basketball players (black) we spend millions and they live better than the other 25000 paying students. I don’t see that as a quota system as it is a way to attracted players and coaches. We are helping kids live up to the potential they didn’t even know they had. (Bam Bam). There are some players and coaches that would not consider coming to the mid west to do anything. That’s why coach Self recruits specific types of kids more than others as he has prejudices. He does not do well with Marcus Smart types of kids what ever color they are. We hired the best coach we could find for our ladies basketball program and hopefully we will mirror our men’s program in a few years. It’s not his fault he stands to pee. He has worked hard and has been successful wherever he has been. I used to work in a business that had a sandwich truck come in everyday at noon and the guys just loved it because the woman was dressed in skimpy outfits with platinum blond hair and heels. When she came to our facility she always used our office restroom for a pit stop. The girls in the office got to noticing that when she left, the lid was always up on the stool, which was not to ordinary so they got to listening and could hear her left the lid when she started her business. Maybe our new ladies coach is a woman. Who knows and who really cares if we are successful.



  • I am resisting the urge to get into another political discussion … we need the season to start. .



  • @REHawk

    Nah, just old fashioned asymmetric benefits of selfish benefit from prejudice. None of the rationalizers here of not having hired African Americans and women are secretive about the asymmetries of their thinking. They are proud of it. To them, this is normal. To want attainable, reasonable fairness is normal, too. They want that. They just don’t want to act now–to bear any of the cost now, because they don’t see a benefit to themselves now. It was the same with automakers and seat belts. They wished people didn’t die. But they saw no next quarter incentive to changing. It was easier to do the wrong thing.

    There is also an element of strategy to racism, sexism, and all top down ideological encouragement of asymmetric treatment of human beings, but strategy is mostly not conspiracy either.

    Take richness/power. With food, roof, leisure, purposeful enjoyable work and security, they mean nothing if everyone is rich/powerful. Richness/power take on meaning and operational effectiveness only if they are in asymmetric distribution. Thus, ideologies fostering asymmetry are pursued top down, by most groups at most levels of the hierarchy, and at most nodes of the network to heighten control of future beneficial action and its sustainability.

    Prejudice is a highly reliable strategy of creating and sustaining this asymmetry.

    Conserving prejudice is a highly reliable tactic of preserving the strategy of prejudice.

    Conspiracy isn’t necessary most of the time, and only necessary at the margin, because conservation of prejudice is self incentivizing.

    Unless laws, or wars, raise the cost of conserving prejudice to those imposing it as normal and tolerable in the short run and destined to be righted in the long run when they bear no cost, it goes on mostly without conspiracy–mostly through normalization. I try never to forget that considerable numbers of slaves were afraid of freedom; that Harriet Tubbman said one of her biggest problems was getting slaves to think freedom was even possible; this normalization through open, top down institutionalizing of asymmetry is the mechanism/dynamic that must be altered, not conspiracy.

    Conspiracy assumes one cannot know who did what and that one must live with it. This is why intelligence organizations often spread and subsidize conspiracy theories in the wakes of their covert activities. Every person that believes in conspiracies and views the world through that lens is a self limiting problem. If you look for conspiracies you will find them and by definition their ultimate culprits cannot be known. Elegant. But just plain bad to do to a culture or group.

    We just need to hire some more black head coaches and some women head coaches to free ALL of us of this strategy of asymmetry just a little more. There is no perfection. Not even thinking about perfection. But there is much greater symmetry both feasible and desirable.

    Gotta do it.

    Then the black folk gotta lend a hand and get us a Chinese head coach. Imagine how many shoes a great Chinese head coach could sell and how many more Yao Mings must be in China to develop in 2 billion people!

    KU basketball. It helped change America. It can help change the world! But we can’t lay down on the job and we can’t rest on our laurels. We have fix what we have missed so far and keep moving forward. The more of these asymmetries we fix the bigger and better our recruiting and winning will become!

    There is self interest–the enlightened kind–in doing the right thing.

    Rock Chalk!


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