In meeting with Monte Lee this week and evaluating the state of Clemson’s baseball program, athletic director Graham Neff said the process of making a change in the program’s leadership all happened relatively fast. That’s because Neff’s goal is to move as quickly as possible in finding the Tigers’ next coach.
“We moved expeditiously through those and want to continue it in the search,” Neff said.
But, at least to some extent, there may be a limit to just how fast Neff can work to do that.
Lee’s dismissal came a day after Clemson found out it won’t be participating in this year’s NCAA Tournament, the second straight year the Tigers will watch the postseason from home. The 64 teams that are part of the tournament will begin regional play Friday, which could make it tricky for Neff if he wants to have conversations about Clemson’s vacancy with coaches of teams whose seasons are still going on.
Neff made it clear the athletic department doesn’t intend to spare any expense when it comes to filling a job for which he has laid out lofty postseason expectations. While he’s not ruling out the possibility of hiring a top assistant or someone in the professional ranks, Neff said his search will start with “high-profile, accomplished coaches,” some of which might still be coaching their current teams.
“That’s where baseball is maybe a little more unique than maybe some other sports in that there’s probably some aspect of hurry up and wait if that’s a phrase that applies,” Neff said. “There are certainly going to be coaches that we’d want to talk to that we want to respect their current roles and current teams and go about the process in a first-class manner.”
Neff said his search will begin in earnest today.
“(Wednesday) will be proverbially rolling up the sleeves and doing the due diligence on the search, but we’ll need to balance that with the time of year, regionals this weekend, etc. It’s one of those where we’ll start to dive into it, see who’s available, who’s willing to talk or who maybe has some interest in how we go about balancing that.”
Still, Neff said he wants to move as quickly as he can this time of year to fill the job, one where previous coaches have proven it’s possible to win big. Clemson has played in 32 of the last 35 NCAA Tournaments and has made 12 trips to the College World Series, most recently in 2010.
Neff believes the attractiveness of the job speaks for itself.
“We’re incredibly bullish on our job and the profile of our job as a top-15 job and the interest that it would have,” Neff said. “Our desire to win and win big and the requisite investment and resources that would entail, we’re ready to present a great package to get into those conversations with the timeline TBD.”
