Reggie Geary Final Coach For Olson’s Staff…But Why?
Reggie Geary, the former University of Arizona basketball player, has returned to Tucson to be an assistant coach on Lute Olson’s staff. The question is why?
Geary originally was a member of Olson’s staff in 2005. That job lasted all of one month.
Olson asked Geary to leave his spot on the Wildcats bench to accept an administrative role (it could have been worse he could have been doing fund raising like Kevin O’Neill ) when he hired Miles Simon as an assistant.
Following his time as Lute Olson’s secretary an administrator he left Tucson to be an assistant coach for the Anaheim Arsenal of the NBADL where he served as head coach for the 2007-2008 season.
In principle bringing Geary back isn’t a bad thing. He was a fan favorite and has some minimal coaching experience. The problem is he is coming to be part of a coaching staff that includes a former ASU broadcaster, a guy who has a connection to a possible high school recruit and a head coach who left his team abruptly last year.
None of that really strikes confidence in fans, players (see Nic Wise, Mohamed Tangara, Chase Budinger or Jerryd Bayless) or possible recruits (see Emmanuel Negedu).
The alternative to Geary was Wyking Jones whose experience includes being an assistant coach at Pepperdine under Paul Westphal and being the manager for Nike’s traveling team.
From all accounts Jones’ experience with the Nike team has made him a very valuable coach when it comes to recruiting, something the Cats will sorely miss with the departure of Josh Pastner to Memphis.
I guess Lute figured with Pastner gone he needed to meet his prerequisite of having one former player on his bench to keep the fans happy. That guy just happened to be Geary.
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Posted by Greg Esposito
Co-founder of AzSportsHub.com. Greg provides the sometimes serious, sometimes sarcastic and always interesting takes on Arizona sports (at least we hope). Whether it’s on In The Zona with Matt or in his column Greg reports, rants and raves about whatever is in the news for Arizona Sports.
http://www.azsportshub.com/author/espo
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