Following father's success never easy
Thank goodness for Craig Esherick.
If Georgetown's decision to hire John Thompson III translates into the success expected of the Hoyas in the coming seasons, they will thank the man who followed the first John Thompson in D.C. Maybe not so much for what Esherick did as the Hoyas' head coach, but simply for the seasons he served as a buffer between father and son on the bench.
Had there not been an Esherick Era at Georgetown, this John Thompson's chance to be a success would be significantly diminished. Certainly the pressure on III would be even more intense.
"It's not an easy thing to do," says Murry Bartow, who followed his father Gene at UAB.
Ah, but it seems so natural, really. A son filling his father's loafers on the sidelines.
The reality, however, is what may seem like a good idea at the time, isn't always inherently good. Sure, the good vibes may last a season or two, but long term, living up to a father's high standards at the same school -- especially when pops is a living legend -- doesn't bode well for the good son's independence, let alone job security.
In the case of the Bartows, Gene coached two seasons at UCLA (1975-77), following John Wooden, before 18 seasons at UAB, where he guided the Blazers to nine NCAA Tournaments. The good son? Well, Murry Bartow lasted six seasons and was there to see the school honor his father by naming its gym Bartow Arena in 1997. But after reaching just one NCAA Tournament (1999), he was asked to exit his father's building in 2002.
Murry Bartow is now the coach at East Tennessee State, where he just went to the NCAAs and gave Cincinnati a serious scare in the first round -- his first season on the job.
"The buffer helps John Thompson," Bartow says of the four-plus seasons Esherick was in charge of the Hoyas after replacing his former boss on the bench.
So, at least for now, it's Esherick who'll be the coach remembered as being unable to keep Georgetown near the top of the Big East, not to mention an annual NCAA Tournament participant.
Under Esherick, who played for John Thompson before serving as his assistant for 21 seasons, the Hoyas were 103-74. Georgetown went to one NCAA Tournament, getting to the Sweet 16 in 2001, but failed to qualify for the postseason (13-15) this past season after barely reaching the Big East tournament.
Thompson III, meanwhile, arrives on campus after leading Princeton to two NCAA Tournaments in four seasons -- edging out Ivy League rival Penn for the automatic bid both times. A fixture around Georgetown while growing up, Thompson III played at Princeton before becoming an assistant to Pete Carril and Bill Carmody at the Ivy institution. The 38-year-old's only Division I head coaching experience has come over the past four seasons with the Tigers.
"You can't turn it down when the president of the university comes in and asks you to take over for your father," Bartow said. "A lot of my friends told me it would have been better off if I went to a mid-major first. It didn't matter how many years I had been there, someone would always say 'there's Gene Bartow's son.'
"John Thompson knows what he's getting into. He knows the expectations. He just has to put on the blinders."
While a Bartow was on the UAB bench for over two decades, nowhere was a name more synonymous with a program than at DePaul. And no son felt more pressure to follow his father than Joey Meyer in 1985. All but inheriting the Blue Demons from his father Ray -- an institution in Chicago as well as college basketball -- Joey Meyer would experience both the highs and lows that come with sharing a legend's name.
Ray Meyer spent 42 years as DePaul's head coach (1942-84), posting 37 winning seasons in compiling a 724-354 career record. His teams went to 13 NCAA Tournaments, reached two Final Fours, and the '45 squad won the NIT when it was considered the national championship.
Joey Meyer was involved with the DePaul program in one way or another for 30 years, first as a player, then as an assistant coach on his father's staff, and finally the school's head coach for 13 seasons. He guided the Blue Demons to the NCAA Tournament in each of his first five seasons after taking over for his father. But after trips to the Big Dance in '91 and '92, DePaul missed the NCAAs in Joey's final five seasons.
Ultimately, a 3-23 season ended the Meyer Era at DePaul, as Joey resigned after the 1996-97 season. Together, a Meyer was associated with DePaul for 55 years.
"Murry and I used to talk about this all of the time," said Joey Meyer, referring to when the two coached against each other in Conference USA. The younger Meyer is still a head coach, drawing up plays and shouting instructions in Asheville, N.C., in the NBDL.
"It will be easier on John that there was someone in between, and that he was somewhere else and came back. But there will always be a comparison."
Dealing with such expectations is what Thompson III has to grapple with immediately. Scott Drew replaced his father, Homer, at Valparaiso two seasons ago and went to the NIT after losing the Mid-Continent Conference tournament at the buzzer to IUPUI. Drew only coached in his father's shadow for a season before taking the Baylor job last summer. His father returned to the Valpo bench this season, guiding the Crusaders back to the NCAAs.
"There are a lot of benefits to replacing your father because he's got all of the connections and those who were loyal to your father should be loyal to you," Scott Drew says. "It can help a lot. But replacing any legend is tough, and at Valparaiso, Homer Drew is a legend."
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| — Joey Meyer, who replaced his Hall of Fame father Ray as DePaul's head coach in 1985 |
Sean Sutton will face the same family ties once he's handed the keys to his father's office at Oklahoma State. It's no secret that Sean is the heir apparent to his father Eddie at OSU. But while serving as associate head coach, Sean has looked at other jobs like SMU over the past year, tempted to try to go out on his own before taking over for his father. But he hasn't left his father's side, and it doesn't look as though he'll do so before Eddie Sutton retires -- likely in the next three to four seasons.
"It's always going to be difficult to be that first guy after the legend," Sean Sutton said. "The toughest thing is always living up to those expectations."
While Homer Drew returned to replace his son last season at Valparaiso, talk that Georgetown's original John Thompson should replace Esherick was quickly snuffed by the Hall of Fame coach. Thompson said last Saturday at the Jordan Capital Classic on the Maryland campus that he lived an independent life and so do his sons.
He couldn't be more correct, which is why the expectations should likely change for Thompson III, even with the benefit buffer of the Esherick era.
Thompson III isn't Thompson II in many ways.
"There's a big difference between the two," says Maryland coach Gary Williams, one of a handful of active coaches that includes Ralph Willard (Holy Cross) and Rick Barnes (Texas), who has coached against both Thompsons. Williams coached against Princeton two seasons ago and coached for years against the elder Thompson when Williams was at Boston College in the Big East.
"John, the son, has the Pete Carril influence at Princeton ... whereas John Sr. had Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Allen Iverson, Charles Smith, Reggie Williams and the like," Williams adds. "John was in the Big East at its height and little John was in the Ivy League (as a player and coach).
"Oh, and Big John is seven-feet tall," Williams joked. "The son isn't.''
Size aside, Barnes feels both coaches were and are a presence on the sideline. That's a no-brainer with the elder Thompson, who stalked the sidelines in the Big East, likely intimidating younger coaches like Barnes when he was first getting started at Providence during a time of Hoya Paranoia.
"When you play both of them, there's no doubt who is in charge," said Barnes, who played Princeton in Austin two years ago and beat the Tigers in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last month. "Both of them played really sound defense, that's for sure."
Willard, meanwhile, sees both Thompsons as good teachers of the game. He said the younger Thompson had to be a well-schooled teacher and coach to run the Princeton offense. Willard, who has coached against Princeton while at Holy Cross and coached against the elder Thompson when Willard was the coach at Pittsburgh in the Big East, said Thompson's toughest challenge will be in recruiting.
As a coach who has made the opposite transition from the Big East to a low-major program, Willard said his experiences have shown it's easier to go from a big-time school to a mid or low-major in recruiting.
"You only have to deal with the high school coach and the parents as opposed to the posse surrounding those players," Willard said.
John Thompson III's brother, Ronnie, an assistant at Arkansas, disagrees.
"He had to convince people to play at Princeton without scholarships," said Ronnie, who told ESPN.com he has no plans to join his brother's staff at Georgetown and will stay at Arkansas. Ronnie was an assistant at Georgetown under Esherick before joining Stan Heath last summer. (But, Ronnie did take two days off the road recruiting to mull over whether he should return to the Hoyas.)
"Now he's got scholarships. That's a big difference. The biggest difference between him and my dad is that he's more mild-mannered. He doesn't get as angry as quickly."
As for making his mark on Georgetown, Ronnie doesn't expect his brother to change the Hoyas' oft-criticized schedule of soft non-conference games next season -- at least not during a transition year. And in the coming seasons, it might be hard to justify a tougher non-conference slate with the addition of Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette and DePaul in the Big East.
"He's entering a different Big East," Willard said. "When it goes to 16 teams, in a good year, nine teams will be left out of the NCAA Tournament when seven go."
As for Georgetown's style of play (remember, the new coach was born a Hoya but is a Princeton man), Thompson III will need to convert recruits to his Princeton style, which the Princeton Offense architect says can work at Georgetown and in the Big East.
"The way he coached at Princeton was based on the players he had," said Carril, who now works with the Sacramento Kings. "He had good players, not great players, who weren't quick. And they weren't that tall. When he goes to Georgetown he can do it with better players. They'll run faster and jump higher. "Eddie Jordan did that with New Jersey, and if you look some facets of it (especially the Princeton spacing) are all over (the NBA). Over the last decade or two, as Princeton's tuition went up, anytime we wanted to run, the team we were playing against was already ahead of us. Now he'll see his team run the floor."
Thompson III made it clear during his Monday news conference that being his father's son isn't a burden. After all, he's shared the same name, in the same profession, for over a decade -- not to mention 38 years -- and will continue to do so.
"We've always been John Thompson's sons," Ronnie said. "It's not an adjustment for us. It's an adjustment for other people. We've always had that pressure. There's no more added pressure for John. He's the most competitive person I've been around. He set the bar high for himself at Princeton.
"It's going to take some work. You've got to rebuild the reputation of the school and put it on the map for high school kids again. But he knows what it will take to get it back. He was there when they had it going."
Yes, the son who watched his dad stalk the sidelines should be fine. Winning may not come overnight, but as long the alumni don't forget about what came between the two, the latest John Thompson Era may just remind fans of the first one in the near future.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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