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Yes, Yaklich had asked that if any opportunities to advance himself open up this summer that he help with recommendations, but I still find it very noble to cold call Beilein for him.

Typically how that works is Yaklich reaches out, then Muller backs him as a reference for the job. Not how it was done where Muller reached out blindly on his behalf. Beilein had no knowledge of Yaklich or Haynes prior to Muller making that phone call.

Generally speaking, not sure why the argument here Bearz. In a world where bosses won't willingly reach out to a "competitor" in their industry to offer up their best "employees" without being contacted first, this was a selfless act done by Dan Muller to help advance his coaches up the food chain of College Basketball Coaching. In the long term, this should help him attract more quality assistants to his staff...whether at ISUr or somewhere else down the road when he inevitably gets a bigger job offer.

LanceShock:
Haynes was only there a few months, Muller said he was outstanding at his job and recommended him too even though the players loved Haynes in his short time here.


I used to hate Dan Muller as a coach (he blocked me on Twitter his first year), but it's hard to look at what he has done over his 5 years and not like the direction he is taking our basketball program as he matures into his position, both with recruiting and player development. My only concern with him now is his inability to keep players around the program (too much turnover).

I'm not saying Muller didn't do a good and honorable thing; but the original posting try to make it like that Muller totally on his own went out and sought a better job for these guys and that his actions were rare in college basketball. The reality is that Yaklich had made it known he was wanting to move up, his boss became aware of an opportunity that was out there and made a referral call. All good stuff , I think where we differ is you think it's unusual where I don't. It's pretty normal for a "management level" position to have contacts and access to information that someone below them doesn't, and therefore if they know both of an opportunity and the expressed wish of the employee to be the initial go between, at least in my experience. In fact if I knew an employee was definitely looking, I'd want to be involved both to aid them but also so I knew if I needed to be looking at replacement asap. But hey, I respect you see Muller's actions as unique and rare and want to commend him.

And I guess I don't see ISU and Michigan as competitors; to me that's like I've got an employee working for me in Springfield in a position and he wants a better but similar job in Kansas City. I guess the argument can be made that recruiting targets could overlap some in this case, but probably not much.

But anyway, it's all good and kudos to Muller for doing the right thing. There's a quote in John Feinstein's book "The Legend's Club" from either Coach K or his first AD[ I don't remember which] about we should never get accolades for doing the right thing because it then becomes viewed as special when it's simply doing the right thing. But I think in today's world, you're probably right, the right thing is too often special, so we probably need to recognize it.

BirdsEyeView wrote:How many of those head coaches are openly calling other schools offering up their assistants?

Happens all the time, except usually it coaches trying to get their assistants head coaching gigs.

Hate to lose good young assistants, but Muller doesn't want to be viewed as a guy who is holding guys back from bigger opportunities.

I guess my question is how many college coaches are offering up their own assistants to be assistants at other schools?

Usually I see head coaches offering up assistants to be head coaches elsewhere, not assistants elsewhere.

Might as well save your breath.

Any Muller news will always have a negative spin on this board no matter how positive the story is.

I'd take the words, thoughts, and opinions of an NCAA P5 head coach over some of the yahoos on this board any day.

Kudos to Muller for what he's done here.

Right. For John Beilein to single out a comment about what Muller did selflessly for him is pretty cool. Not at all standard in the industry to offer up your own assistants for a non-head coaching position.

Figured this was a goodwill type of message about the growth of Muller as a coach and for his selflessness looking out for his people. But, that turned into a two page argument about downplaying the feat.

It is what it is.

BCPanther wrote:With all this coaching talent you'd think Illinois State would have made a tournament this millennium...

giggles

Is it true one of the newcomers for the birds is having eligibility issues?

Muller just agreed to a contract extension with Illinois St through 2024.