Three days after attending the funeral for basketball coach Skip Prosser, Wake Forest Athletic Director Ron Wellman met with each member of Prosser’s staff and laid out his plan for choosing a successor.
He outlined four options. He could:
Promote from within the staff and sign that coach to a standard length contract.
Name an interim coach from within the staff and spend the season weighing options.
Hire from outside but require that person to retain the existing staff.
Hire from outside and allow that coach to hire his own staff.
Wellman told them he would take care not to allow the emotions of the moment to factor into his decision. “Emotional decisions usually come back to haunt you in short order,” Wellman said. “I was determined to make the best decision for the program, long term. If that meant going outside, that’s what we would do.”
Four days later, and two weeks after Prosser’s death from a heart attack, Wellman introduced Dino Gaudio, who was Prosser’s top assistant and the best man in his wedding, as Wake Forest’s basketball coach.
WHAT PEOPLE
ARE SAYING:
“He obviously has a good relationship with his coaches, not only professionally but personally. That undoubtedly has been a benefit when others have come calling.”
CHUCK NEINAS
Consultant
“The challenge is dealing with your own personal feelings and yet continuing to lead,” Wellman said. “Skip was a very good personal friend, and in some ways you have to put that aside during the time that other people need you the most. That’s the most challenging part.”
If you share the commonly held belief that, for all the work they do juggling budgets and managing operations, athletic directors are gauged based on the coaching hires they make in football and basketball, last year was a watershed for Wellman.
A 2006 season in which the Wake Forest football team won its first ACC title since 1970 and appeared in the Orange Bowl brought Deacons coach Jim Grobe the AP Coach of the Year award. Another bowl appearance last season attracted a pair of deep-pocketed suitors. Both Nebraska and Arkansas flirted with Grobe, and Arkansas offered him a job.
Grobe stayed, testimony to the power of the security that Wellman has created for his top coaches. In 2003, Wellman gave both Grobe and Prosser 10-year contracts. He extended Grobe through 2016 last year. When he promoted Gaudio, Wellman gave him a five-year deal, even though he almost certainly could have justified a shorter commitment under the circumstances.
“If I had given him a two- or three-year deal, that would be sending the message that we hope this works out, but that I’m not convinced it will work out,” Wellman said. “So he has a five-year contract. I wanted him to have the same opportunity any other coach would.”
Perhaps Wellman understands the value of those commitments so clearly because of the commitment he’s made himself. He’s been AD at Wake for 16 years and has turned down overtures from larger programs, choosing instead to build at Wake.
Last season, he landed what is only the fifth naming-rights deal in I-A football, signing BB&T to a 10-year deal that will help fund a stadium expansion that will cost at least $47 million. He created a seat license program that is expected to raise at least $8 million.
“You get comfortable at a place,” Wellman said. “It’s invigorating and motivating to come to work every day. I thank God every day when I come on this campus for this job. When you have it that good that you’re that appreciative of the opportunity being given to you, why would you leave? You may not find that happiness somewhere else.”
Fended off suitors to retain football coach Jim Grobe, the AP Coach of the Year in 2006.
