McLeod out is a downer
TweetMANY NBL and Wollongong Hawks fans were in shock when the city's favourite basketball son, Gordie McLeod, walked away from the coaching gig on Monday.
Not sure why. It's been coming.
Six years at the helm, two Coach of the Year awards, an inaugural member of the Illawarra Hawks' *NIBL team in 1979, nine years as a player, the Moscow Olympics, singlet retired, a grand final in 2010 as coach, several semi final appearances with low-budget over-achieving teams...
To be completely frank, we ran this story: http://bit.ly/1dLHxlH here on February 21 (and copped some flak for it) and felt, even until McLeod's resignation on Monday, that he was only hanging in/on to create the appearance of solidarity during the voluntary administration period.
Putting the Hawks first has always been a McLeod priority. Now that the club is out of the woods (again), his decision should not come as any huge surprise.
Already the Hawks are being inundated with coaching applications and the names of the usual suspects will be rolled out before long.
But don't be surprised if long-time Cairns Taipans assistant coach Mick Downer isn't heavily in the mix.
Downer (above) is an assistant with Andrej Lemanis and the Aussie Boomers and was part of last year's FIBA World Cup campaign.
Previously he also played an integral role in the ghastly-named "emerging Boomers" program, as head coach of the Australian men’s team at the 2011 World University Games.
He has been through two NBL Grand Final campaigns alongside Aaron Fearne at Cairns and with Fearney recently re-signed for three more years as Taipans coach, any head coaching aspirations Downer has either must stay on hold or necessitate him moving south.
Don't be surprised if he is sitting alongside longtime Hawks assistants Matt Flinn and Eric Cooks in the not-too-distant future.
(*NIBL - The NBL initially launched as the National Invitation Basketball League in 1979 before dropping the Invitation the following year.)