It seems that Radford U's coaching staff is completely revamped except for the head coach. Any insider info on this? Is it all a matter of coaches leaving for new opportunities or are there other dynamics at play here? I know that Ryan Connelly is back with Pete Hughes and Brian Anderson now at Penn St.
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Nature of the beast. Very few people want to be a career assistant coach. That, among other things, creates an ebb & flow throughout the profession. Tough to tell from your post, but it seems like you may be concerned with the leadership at Radford. Perhaps you are hesitant to send your son to play for a guy that "can't keep coaches"? Don't be alarmed. Coach Raccuia is doing a great job. He's helped prepare 2 guys to take 2 great positions in the same "graduating year". And brought in top coaches to replace them. Those are good things!
I'd look for continued improvement and success up there.
And by the way, they were not the only school to bring in new staff. Off top of my head (others may add) some schools with new faces (or roles) include UR, VT, GMU, CNU, RMC, FC, LU, PHCC and I'm sure some others.
Rich
It's a domino effect...
P.I.S hit it on the head and i agree with what he said. I know of alot of players on the squad who believe that as well.
Side note, every coach wants more pay, and some schools are able to pay more than others.
Around here, if you're a UVA fan, you may be especially spoiled by continuity. The fact that Kevin McMullan is still at Virginia is pretty incredible...it seems obvious that he's head coach material and I'm shocked each year that he ends up back in Charlottesville.
Kuhn has been with O'Connor the whole time too, but I'm less surprised that he hasn't moved on. To me, he seems best suited as a pitching coach (I'd compare him to Bud Foster being perfectly suited as a coordinator but maybe not as a head coach).
Anyway, that's a long way of saying, UVA is atypical. As PIS describes, what's happening at Radford is nothing unusual.
The loss of Anderson is big IMHO, but from the standpoint of VA players, it'll be nice to have a guy at Penn State who might take an interest in our boys. I know a lot of kids who would love to play at Penn State if only they could figure out how to garner interest there.
But the hiring of McQueen, a guy with a long pedigree of putting pitchers into the pros and even all the way to MLB, is a plum for the program. As many know, Mac had some issues at UR but nothing that would get in the way of him doing a great job at Radford.
On balance, I would say Radford did pretty well in the inevitable coaching carousel.
The telltale sign of a healthy program is the advancement of assistant coaches. Of course, there are exceptions like UVA, but no one takes a mid major assistant job wanting to stay there for their career. Raccuia has built a healthy program.
Recently got my first indication that Brian Anderson will continue to recruit Virginia now, for Penn State.
Players would be well advised to take advantage of the potential opportunity to get attention from PSU. I don't know of anyone from our area who's gone there for baseball in recent years, but it's a great school with a tremendous alumni support network that can lay a nice foundation for a kid's future. I sure hope that door opens wide for some of our local talent.
