Will Davis new Lamar Baseball Coach

[Big T]

I am greatly amused by several of the posters on here. Guys, it is official and there is nothing you can do. JR and SH both have a full season and an off season to find other jobs IF Davis does not decide to keep them on his staff. I have to admit I do not see that happening for the simple reason that the program under Gilligan and the other two has flat out under performed in ALL areas. Davis is going to be the new coach at LU so instead of tearing down the guy before he even gets a chance to build his own program here, why don't we just say welcome and give him and this team our full support. I realize that many of you are most likely good friends with JR and SH and are upset to see them having to move on, but the AD had to what was best for this program. If you have been watching the same program the past four years as I have then you should agree. Right now this program is going in the wrong direction and it needs a few new faces with different ideas and visions. When we are being surpassed by schools like Central Arkansas, Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, and Abilene Christian three of which were division II two years ago, that should show you something. Lamar should NEVER be looking up at those schools in ANY sport.

[King Snake]

and most openings are posted in the fall for the spring. if they knew they were going to replace JR, they could have had the decency to let him know so he could have applied elsewhere. Unless you know the whole story, don't make assumptions about why the strung him along....once again, it's all political.

 

So now they know and can apply for those jobs in the upcoming year, since the coaching change doesn't take place until next season.

[King Snake]

I personally am thrilled that they went outside of the program and are bringing in a young, fresh face. LU baseball has been underperforming for several years. It is well past time for Jim's farewell tour. And I'm not sure the JR and SH offer much as far as new and fresh ideas. Recruiting has been lagging. As a fan, I have been losing interest. I just hope this 2016 season is not too much of a failure because of the distractions of Jim leaving, JR & SH in limbo and a new coach in waiting.

[Skinny1]

I personally am thrilled that they went outside of the program and are bringing in a young, fresh face. LU baseball has been underperforming for several years. It is well past time for Jim's farewell tour. And I'm not sure the JR and SH offer much as far as new and fresh ideas. Recruiting has been lagging. As a fan, I have been losing interest. I just hope this 2016 season is not too much of a failure because of the distractions of Jim leaving, JR & SH in limbo and a new coach in waiting.

 

I agree 100%. This guy looks like a recruiter & that is the key in college athletics, especially baseball. You can't make chicken salad outta chicken sh*t!

[coachacola]

[tweet]689218432177287168[/tweet]

[FormerCardnal11]

This is so embarrassing as a former player for this program. We have hired a guy who has 0 head coaching experience at any college level think about that. He doesn't know how to schedule, doesn't know how to make a practice plan for a week much less a season or off season. He has played less baseball than over half the kids on the team right now! Not saying that they needed to hire Rick for the job, but come on don't fool yourself they hired a GA from a big name program with 0 experience and never been outside of one program. Literally hundreds of coaches nation wide that have a better resume but hey im sure Gilligan got what he wanted, he can come to practice for 30mins a day like he's been doing for the past 6 years and be seen.

[lu cards]

hearing a local, head coach has been hired by our new coach?former player?

[THEBECK]

As a big LU baseball supporter, I have been following this hiring process closely. I was a bit confused as to why we hired a young Volunteer Coach, especially when they had months upon months to hire the best possible candidate. To pass on Ricklefsen, who is a veteran in the game, and titled "Associate Head Coach", I would expect a big name hire. As we all know, getting a job in college athletics is all about who you know. This leads me to believe that Will Davis has a connection to Lamar. Why else would a young, inexperienced guy get the job? So I did some digging...After reading some articles, and listening to Jim Gilligan's retirement speech, it seemed as though he didn't think his assistants should take over when he left. I thought it was odd that he never thanked them in his retirement speech, after decades of working under him. Then he talked about not thanking anyone else that he might be wanting to choke in 9 months. Then in various articles, he never publicly endorsed his assistants. Now if you're not going to endorse them, you give them no shot essentially...just throwing them to the wolves. He also mentioned it was a young mans game, and ironically a young guy gets hired. I also think its a bit ironic that on the evening of Will Davis's interview, he was seen having dinner with Jim Gilligan and Vidor High School Head baseball Coach, Kyle Green (dressed in a suit, interview?). Ironically, a couple of days later, Will Davis was named head coach, and Kyle Green was hired as the pitching coach. I think we all know who was pulling the strings here, leaving the AD as merely a puppet. Thoughts?

[Skinny1]

Just thinking about the history of Lamar Athletic programs hiring practices. Lamar has not done well at all in promoting assistant coaches to the head coach position. Gilligan was a DJ or something like that when he became LU's baseball coach, he resigned to coach in the minor leagues & David Perkins was promoted to Head Coach - disaster. Vernon Glass steps down as head FB coach, Bob Frederick (DC) is promoted - disaster. Sonny Jolly resigns as track coach, replaced by #1 assistant Barry Collins, no more conference track titles. Collins resigns replaced by assistant Trey Clark - still no track titles (not counting CC). Tubbs, Jolly, & Gilligan were all former players for LU, and Tubbs & Jolly were head coaches at other programs prior to being hired by Lamar. I am not sure all this means anything, but going outside the program vs. promoting seems to have landed the best results. As far as basketball coaches, that seems to be a crap shoot, with pretty poor results lately. I'm not sure if we can call Tic Price a promoted assistant, but in my opinion the jury is still out on him., If we don't make the conference tourney in the next 2 years, I'm sure he will be replaced. I feel Tic is on a very short leash, and only getting slack is because he is cheap.

[KABrother88]

Looks like things have been shuffled and Davis will be on staff for the 2016 season. I don't know if one of the current assistants has decided to step down now or if Davis will be brought in as a voluntary assistant for this season. LSU head coach Paul Maineiri confirmed the move having already replaced Davis on his staff.

[King Snake]

Will Davis has resigned at LSU and is at LU in an unspecified capacity

 

 

http://www.panews.com/2016/01/22/davis-resigns-post-at-lsu-on-lamar-campus/

[luco77]

As a big LU baseball supporter, I have been following this hiring process closely. I was a bit confused as to why we hired a young Volunteer Coach, especially when they had months upon months to hire the best possible candidate. To pass on Ricklefsen, who is a veteran in the game, and titled "Associate Head Coach", I would expect a big name hire. As we all know, getting a job in college athletics is all about who you know. This leads me to believe that Will Davis has a connection to Lamar. Why else would a young, inexperienced guy get the job? So I did some digging...After reading some articles, and listening to Jim Gilligan's retirement speech, it seemed as though he didn't think his assistants should take over when he left. I thought it was odd that he never thanked them in his retirement speech, after decades of working under him. Then he talked about not thanking anyone else that he might be wanting to choke in 9 months. Then in various articles, he never publicly endorsed his assistants. Now if you're not going to endorse them, you give them no shot essentially...just throwing them to the wolves. He also mentioned it was a young mans game, and ironically a young guy gets hired. I also think its a bit ironic that on the evening of Will Davis's interview, he was seen having dinner with Jim Gilligan and Vidor High School Head baseball Coach, Kyle Green (dressed in a suit, interview?). Ironically, a couple of days later, Will Davis was named head coach, and Kyle Green was hired as the pitching coach. I think we all know who was pulling the strings here, leaving the AD as merely a puppet. Thoughts?

 

The next question to ask is why were they out to dinner when JR still had a phone interview four days later?

[FormerCardnal11]

If that's true about the 3 way convo between Gilligan, Green and Davis, it looks really bad on Jason Henderson. Not sure how you can be the AD of a university and let someone else dictate your hiring of a coach. Although I shouldn't be surprised Henderson probably isn't qualified for his job either. He fell into the AD job because they pushed the old girls basketball coach out instead of letting him continue to coach his team, which was the most successful team on campus at the time. Henderson comes on as the interim AD not having any athletic background and just a couple minor stepping stones getting to Lamar. So for a guy who doesn't know how a program like baseball, football, basketball etc. even runs is giving the interviews it doesn't surprise me he let Gilligan big league him on the hiring process.

 

As a former athlete and student of Lamar I will continue to support all of the athletic teams, but it will be nice when the athletic department gets cleaned up and starts competing for championships again in what I consider to be the big 3 Football, Baseball and Basketball. Just hope to see such big decisions in the future be made on the most highly qualified people in the business rather than a place where we give opportunities to people who have little to no experience in the job they are hired for.

[eagle eye]

I wonder if we can spin the argument in a different direction. First, I agree with posters who see the glass as half full and intend to give Davis a chance. Good for you. Will Davis deserves no less.

Now, let me argue from a different point of view. First, many are pissed about how JR and SH got a raw deal because the news of Davis hire was leaked early on an LSU fan site. I agree it's a crappy way to find out you will be out of a job next year but in this day and age it's a wonder anything can be kept a secret. When the deal was struck the first thing the AD should have done was to inform JR and SH of the situation. Bad form Mr AD you need to do a better job in that regard. I applied for a promotion at my job and I found out I didn't get the job via company scuttlebutt and I'll tell you it sucks and it's a poor reflection on the powers that be that this was allowed to happen. But, I reference a more high profile job about 27 years ago when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys and in his exuberance he announced Jimmy Johnson was going to be the new head coach. Unfortunately, Jones did it before telling the legendary Tom Landry he was fired. This sent the Cowboys off on the wrong foot PR-wise but it turned out alright because after rebuilding from virtually nothing through the draft and Plan-B free agency and the Herschel Walker deal Jones and Johnson graduated from country bumpkins to Super Bowl champs in 3 years. The outrage over the injustice to Tom Landry overshadowed the generally held belief Landry had seen the game pass him by and a change was needed in Dallas. You could rightly argue that that inauspicious firing cemented Landry's legacy and he left the game even more beloved by fans that if he was "properly" fired by Jones.

Our situation isn't as high profile and it wasn't the exuberance of new ownership that caused the news of Davis' hiring. It was just another case of social media being quicker on the draw. BTW, Landry was out of a job immediately while JR and SH have a year to look for a new gig. It also doesn't change the fact that a lot of posters on this site have been yelling for a change in leadership for the baseball program. The general consensus is that the game has passed Coach Gilligan by and his assistants haven't done much to help the old geezer out. A lot of people wanted to start from scratch and if you are honest with yourselves you know I'm right.

Another argument is that Davis has no experience even while admitting he's coached at one of the best programs in the country. Do you think he was spending all the time at LSU goofing off? Don't you think he was involved in recruiting, practice management, learning how to go about setting a season schedule, etc. Really? Really? It's true Davis doesn't have any head coaching experience but he's had a front row seat in how to conduct a program from one of the best in the business. For all the people who wanted a major change in the program, you've got it. If SH or JR had been hired as head coach do you think anything would have changed? Maybe but I doubt it. This is no offense to either man but, as it has been pointed out, this is a business and like every other business in the country, if management ain't gettin' it done it's time for new management. These aren't my words, I'm paraphrasing a large chunk of people on this site who have added Gilligan bashing as an annual rite of spring.

So I would encourage Cardinal fans to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Give him 4 years to show he can put the program back on a winning track. His regime won't start until 2017 and in the mean time this is an extended job interview for JR and SH. Davis will spend the next 12 months recruiting, setting his staff and trying to fill out a season schedule all while supporting the current team. If he didn't he would be a fool. I'm still waiting to see how Tic is going to be doing in 2018. That's when his 4 year trial period is over. By then his first recruiting class with be seniors and we'll see if he's worth keeping. Davis deserves no less.

I'm sorry this post is so long but I read every post on this thread and I just had to say something.

[baller]

Good insights overall eagle eye.I do want to clarify Tic Price's first real recruiting class is this year's freshman class that will be seniors for the 2018-2019 season.I think most followers consider this class pretty good.He took over for Pat Knight in the last two weeks of the 2013-2014 season and got a very late start to evaluating and signing players,many of whom were already committed or signed in the previous fall early signing period.It would hardly be fair to not consider that in an evaluation of the players signed after the 2013-2014 season.

[eagle eye]

Good insights overall eagle eye.I do want to clarify Tic Price's first real recruiting class is this year's freshman class that will be seniors for the 2018-2019 season.I think most followers consider this class pretty good.He took over for Pat Knight in the last two weeks of the 2013-2014 season and got a very late start to evaluating and signing players,many of whom were already committed or signed in the previous fall early signing period.It would hardly be fair to not consider that in an evaluation of the players signed after the 2013-2014 season.

 

Thanks for the clarification, baller.

[coachacola]

Looks like he's already on the recruiting trail:

 

[tweet]693250153466109952[/tweet]

[KABrother88]

Looks like he's already on the recruiting trail:

 

[tweet]693250153466109952[/tweet]

 

Looks like it's from Crosby HS RHP Nathan Gabryszwski. As a JR he went 9-4 with 8 CGs (5 Shutouts) with a 1.11 ERA enroute to being named district MVP.

[KABrother88]

Per a press release today, Will Davis will assume 3rd base and base running duties for this season. Also being reported that Jim Ricklefsen will not be coaching this season. His bio has also been removed from the Lamar athletic website.

[lu cards]

I really like this guy but not in gay sorta way.

[bigred360]

I think this was a good hire but I guess it will be a couple of years before we really know.

[eagle eye]

For those who were wondering what Davis was going to do this season while Jim Gilliagan finishes his tenure at Lamar don't have to worry about that now. I think it is a little bit disquieting to have the successor ride shotgun on the program while the grizzled old veteran is looking at his replacement every day. One word comes to mind, "awkward".

[FormerCardnal11]

Well according to an earlier post, Gilligan took his successor out to dinner before he got hired. So sounds like it wont be that awkward, what would be awkward is going to McNesse and seeing Coach Rick across the field (the guy that was promised the job) in another uniform.