Hughes leaving VT baseball

Wow.   Did anyone see that coming?  I certainly didn't.  Last month I was listening to a radio interview with Hughes, and all he talked about was how much he loved VT and the Blacksburg area.   So much for that. 

I hope the program can continue to make progress under new leadership.

A tweet I got said that Coach Pat Mason would be taking over.  

I hope Coach Hughes, or Coach Mason, called all their recruits.  Shoot...I hope all the current players got a heads-up before this hit the media.

Shocking news to me.  I really had the feeling that Coach Hughes intended to stay in Blacksburg for the rest of his career. 

I guess there will be continuity.  Considering the heights to which Hokies baseball has climbed, that's a good thing, hopefully their ascent will continue.

So much for honoring a contract. 

One day later, and this still has me scratching my head.  Hughes and staff bring VT out of the ACC basement into respectability & competiveness in 2013.  They have a very good year in 2013 by just about anyone's standards.  Hughes is a northeast guy and has built his recruiting pipeline with Northeast and MidAtlantic/Virginia talent.   He has some very good recruits coming in from the names I'm familiar with.   VT has finally got their chin above the bar, and Hughes scoots off to OK.  I'm not sure what he knows about recruiting in the middle of the country, but I guess we are about to find out.  His previous stops were Boston College and Trinity University in San Antonio.  

Is this about money?  Did Hughes think they were not going to renew his contract?  Is this perceived as a bump up in programs or responsibility?  Possibly, but not that much.  Slap me silly and call me Sally, but what am I missing here?

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/...hes-as-virginia.html

200000 reasons maybe? interesting article

Well, no pretending it is not all about the money. 200k (maybe more) raise, more than doubling his salary = so long VT. 175k per year in Blacksburg will go a long way for promoted Mason. I wish him and the Hokies the best.

200000 reasons and a ride on Toby Keiths jet.  Hughes could be "as good as he once was" with that pay increase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQrapQ4d0Y

"So much for honoring a contract."

To say that indicates you don't understand how these contracts are typically structured.

They typically set terms to govern for a period of years, but they also specify what happens if one side or the other chooses to end the relationship before the end of that period.  And either side can end it earlier as long as they're willing to do what the contract says they have to do as a condition of an early exit.

It's commonplace, mutually negotiated up front, and understood from day one to the last day.  So please don't insinuate that something dishonorable happened here.  Someone exercised a right they negotiated for and were willingly given by the other party.

And please don't pretend that you wouldn't have done the same to get your family another $200,000 per year. 

How about the "contract" with the 7 or 8 recruits coming in.  You don't think the Hokie package thrown out at them included the "family theme" in it.  It's really very simple, you either care about the kids or you go for the cash!  You can not have it both way.  Even worse where you preach your caring and then grab the cash.  He is not alone it's getting to be a long line in many sports.  Business. 

You're going to recruit kids and families every year! Are you supposed to let that lock you in forever... The assistants and other staff have a huge part in the recruiting process; and are usually the first line of contact for these incoming anyway...

I would go out on a limb and say - everything Coach Hughes told these kids they will get from VA Tech is still in place. Everything good with the Va Tech program is still in place.

Great facility, education and opportunity to play the best and develop.

Doubtful you'll see these recruits criticizing Coach Hughes like the people with opinions who know nothing about it.

I am a complete outsider here but I don't think you can compare this to what has become commonplace behavior with coaches in different sports.  A lot of these coaches are financially very comfortable in their current positions but think nothing of jumping ship at a moments notice for more dollars.  Their current and future standard of livings are not impacted in any way by these new dollars.  They already have more than plenty.

That doesn't seem to apply here.  Who in their right mind would make the family sacrifices that are required to coach at these levels for only 157K a year?  I know I wouldn't no matter how much I loved my job, the team, etc.  Above all I value my time with my own family way more than that.

It seems Coach Hughes had an opportunity to make a significant life change for his family.  There is a very large difference between the two salaries and I agree completely with Midlo Dad that I think very few people would have done things any differently.  

Never pick a college baseball program because of the coach. Many variables can change. The coach leaving by choice is only one of the variables. College athletes are young adults. They're old enough to learn life isn't always as they want it. 

Only 157k huh? Ever been to Blacksburg? I lived there for the better part of 6 years. Cost of living is so low compared to NoVA, a family could live very, very well on that income. That stated, he broke his contract as he was allowed to do (negotiated a priori) to make a LOT more money. Simple. I sincerely expect, over a beer, after talking about new opportunity and challenges, etc., that it was all about the money. In the end, he has to take care of himself and his family and he made that choice over honoring the rest of the contract and VT baseball. And such choices are commonplace.

IMHO very sage advice for any recruit.  My son is a rising college senior at a D1 academic school.  4 years have passed since my oldest son was being recruited.  Out of the 5 schools that showed serious interest or offered, only 1 head coach remains out of all the head coaches and recruiting coaches.   The numbers are even thinner when I look at all the coaches at all the schools that had interest or we visited.   You can pretty much count on coaching turnover for whatever reason.  The recruits that understand this is a business have a leg up.

I wish Coach Hughes well, and I totally (now) understand his departure.  This is professional advancement and a bigger paycheck.  If I was offered the same increase, I would jump at it.  My co-workers and customers would understand.

Best of luck to Coach Hughes.  I don't blame him for taking the OU job.  

Coach Mason has been aggressive in reaching out to his recruits, at least his Canes recruits.

The news indicates there are 7 verbal commits in the 2014 class.  Two of them are on our team.  I can tell you that those players were fully informed of how the system works, and had all the information on possibilities before they committed.  Both of them hoped to play for Coach Hughes, but both of them, in the end, really wanted to go to Va. Tech.

In any event, none of the 7 have signed NLI's, therefore all of them know that they are still at risk of having deals withdrawn, just as VT knows that they are at risk of having players decommit as well. 

I think it's comical that anyone would expect a guy to forego that kind of career opportunity to meet some expectation that I doubt anyone involved actually had. 

Your boss probably talks to you about being a great member of the company team, etc., but your boss also knows that if a competitor offers you twice your current pay, he'll be searching for your replacement.  This is a common life experience and there's no reason why college baseball should be any different.

Okay, I'm not a lawyer, perhaps you are. But I am a writer-editor and understand semantics. 

Exercising a right or privilege specifically provided for in a contract may be terminating the contract, but it is not breaking (actually the term usually used is "breaching") it.

A termination may or not be a breach of a contract, depending upon whether the person doing the terminating had the right to do so, or did so wrongly.

It may be semantics, but the connotation involved in saying someone "broke" or "breached" a contract is one that accuses of wrongful conduct.  That would be factually incorrect here. 

What would be wrongful would be to throw around accusations without adequate information, or worse, to continue doing so even after you've learned that you're wrong.

So the kids get screwed? One of my son's former LL teammates verballed to an ACC program. The coach left. The new coach told recruits they could back out of their verbal with no hard feelings. The kid signed with an SEC school. He's been to the CWS twice so far.

A head coach leaving a program will almost always leave some folks feeling some level of animosity, having dealt with that personally in my playing days.  However, I've never understood the backlash when the principle concern is how much money the coach left for.

Every human being I know, within the framework of "ethical, legal, responsible", etc...will do whatever is necessary to better themselves and the quality of life for their family.  How any other human being can begrudge that, carries with it an incredible amount of hypocrisy.

In my view, Coach Hughes should probably be thanked for elevating the Tech program and leaving it better than he found it.  But that's just me.

GoHeels I couldn't agree more with your statement and view on this. 

Unfortunately, Hughes (and other coaches like him) gets saddled with this burden & responsibility by folks because of the NCAA limitations on player transfers.  The current VT players don't have the luxury of changing their situation as Hughes does.  It will be interesting to see how their verbal commits progress with the NLI and beyond. 

I don't pretend to know all the facts, perhaps you do know them all. But I doubt it. I do know you don't me, so please don't mischaracterize my actions and intent. 

In general, it might help for folks not to get (overly) agitated about semantics.

Anyone who commits should understand that the head coach, and/or one or more of the assistants, may not be there when they arrive.  Turnover is a fact of life. 

Just a few weeks ago, Coach Hughes had a health scare which happily did not prove tragic.  But it did illustrate that if nothing else, every commit should recognize that everyone they are dealing with is a mere mortal. 

And like other mere mortals, they also serve at the pleasure not only of our Creator, but also that of their superiors. 

And conversely, they can quit their job, just like anyone else, too.

All of this is well known and readily available to any newbie for the asking.  So you don't get to pretend you didn't know, you don't get to rely on some self-created notion of certainty that has no basis in reality, and you don't get to blame others if you were too lazy to learn the basic rules that applied to something as important to you as your own scholarship.

In the recruiting threads, we've had a recent spate of bitchin' and moanin' about parents feeling stressed because they were trying to handle everything for their sons -- the root of the problem being that the sons themselves were not stepping up to handle their own responsibilities.  To me, this is another example of not doing what you are supposed to do and then seeking to lay the responsibility on others. 

You don't pretend to know all the facts, but that didn't stop you from posting the following:

"Well, no pretending it is not all about the money. 200k (maybe more) raise, more than doubling his salary = so long VT. 175k per year in Blacksburg"

"That stated, he broke his contract as he was allowed to do (negotiated a priori) to make a LOT more money."

The terms of Pete Hughes' contract at OU will not pay him double his Va Tech salary (from $207K @ VT this past year to $350K @ OU) and Hughes buyout clause requires him to pay Va Tech $165K (Roanoke Times).  You then ask me not to "mischaracterize" your actions and intent while not extending Hughes the same courtesy by posting speculative (and incorrect) comments. Hmmm.   

My figures came from a link (http://www.roanoke.com/sports/...hes-as-virginia.html) posted earlier: "Hughes made $157,437 at Tech this year. The terms of his Oklahoma contract were not announced. But Golloway made more than $350,000 at Oklahoma this year"

So, let's see: YES, 157k x 2 would be, speculatively, very likely doubling his salary (or more). Sounds reasonable to me. Did I check multiple sources? No, but I DID state I did not know all the facts to clarify my post. But then you re-quote the original offending quote and admonish me on these boards (again). I asked you previously, do YOU know all the facts? You sure post like you do and correct my math with your conflicting values. Then there is the semantic issue of the, apparently emotional/legal term "broke", to which, which my (oft-) quoted text was caveated with "negotiated a priori". Please go back to your hymns, or hmms...or better yet, let's stick to civil discourse related to baseball.

Oh, for the record: I'm a Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (AKA VA Tech or even VT) alum, so I have a quasi-emotional interest in Coach Hughes leaving early.

Excellent play on words.

Fabulous.