NCCU Removes Phil Spence as Head Men's Basketball Coach


Bro. Askia

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From News & Observer Monday, March 1, 2004 7:40PM EST
http://www.newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncsports/v-print/story/3381520p-3008382c.html

North Carolina Central removes coach
http://www.nccu.edu/campus/athletics

The Associated Press

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina Central coach Phil Spence will not be back next season, the school announced on Monday.

The school has decided not to renew his contract, Eagles athletics director William Hayes said.

"We appreciate the service and dedication that Phil has given to the men's basketball program at NCCU during the past four seasons," Hayes said in a release. "At this time, however, we feel we need to head in a new direction."

Spence guided N.C. Central to a 49-64 record in his four seasons as coach.

The Eagles went 16-13 last season, losing to Virginia Union 80-72 in the CIAA Tournament championship on Saturday night.

The school said it will begin the search for a new coach immediately.

Comments From The Onnidan Fan Forum
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I will make sure to foward this to Pettaway.... He is the perfect man for the job..... Great D2 coach, average D1 coach.
 



Spence out at NCCU
http://www.nccu.edu/campus/athletics

BY MIKE POTTER, The Herald-Sun
March 1, 2004 11:29 pm
http://www.herald-sun.com/sports/nccentral

Just two days after leading his team to the CIAA championship game, N.C. Central fired men's basketball coach Phil Spence on Monday.

NCCU athletics director Bill Hayes told Spence of the decision soon after the coach reported to work Monday, and the decision was officially announced in a press release late Monday afternoon.

"We appreciate the service and dedication that Phil has given to the men's basketball program at NCCU during the past four seasons," Hayes said in a statement. "At this time, however, we feel we need to head in a new direction."

Hayes couldn't be reached for further comment Monday.

During Spence's four-season tenure, the Eagles went 49-64 (.434).

Spence, who turns 50 on March 13, said the decision was something of a surprise after the Eagles almost won the CIAA, something the school has not done in men's basketball since 1950.

"I don't know why they did it," Spence said of the decision. "I thought I did a good job. Progress was made, and all the guys were well-behaved and well-groomed.

"I don't know what I did to deserve this. Coach Hayes said it was because my record was 49-64. But we had progression every year. We won the West last year and played in the CIAA final. "I talked with the chancellor [James Ammons] Saturday and he told me to think long term. Then I come to work today and I'm out of here."


A search committee will be formed quickly to choose Spence's successor, the release said.

MarQus Johnson, Spence's only full-time assistant, is likely to be named interim head coach to handle the transition, although Spence's contract doesn't expire until June 30.

"I've had some fun times," Spence said of his tenure at NCCU, where his wife Paula and daughter Porche are alumni and younger daughter Pauletta is a senior. "But I'm going to be where God wants me to be. I'm going to take some time off and take a step back, and see what I want to do with Phil Spence the rest of his life. I'm not worried at all."

Although Spence's overall record was not flashy, the Eagles had some things to brag about over the last two seasons. A longtime high school coach in Wake County following his playing career at N.C. State that included a national championship in 1974, Spence went 17-38 over his first two seasons with the Eagles. But in 2002-03 the Eagles won the Western Division title, beating Division I archrival N.C. A&T along the way. That team got to the semifinals of the tournament, and Spence was named CIAA coach of the year.

He was awarded a one-year contract before this season. By the time of the CIAA Tournament, six of his top nine players were transfers. This season's Eagles finished 16-13 and came up one win short of repeating as division champion.

During Spence's tenure, the Eagles never lost a first round CIAA Tournament game.

Saturday's 80-72 loss to perennial power Virginia Union marked the fifth time since they won their last championship in 1950 that the Eagles had advanced to the championship game.

Spence and Hayes discussed the situation in separate meetings with team members Monday afternoon.

"It's kind of shocking," said senior center Melvin Whitaker, who played only one semester at NCCU but had his best career game in a 20-point, 11-rebound, six-block effort in the final. "I thought he did a great job. I thought the staff did an excellent job in terms of putting together a team with guys who were only together one year or one semester."

Junior guard Curtis Knight, who made the CIAA's all-rookie team as a freshman, was preseason all-conference and then all-tournament this season, had comments similar to Whitaker's.

"I didn't know anything," Knight said. "This is a shock to me as well as the whole ball club. ... Coach Spence has been like a father figure to me, and he's a great coach."

The transaction marks a complete changeover in the three most visible positions in the NCCU athletics department in a year and a half. Former football coach Rudy Abrams resigned after his final game of the 2002 season and AD Lin Dawson replaced him with Rod Broadway. Hayes replaced Dawson last July after Dawson's contract was not renewed.

URL for this article:
http://www.herald-sun.com/sports/nccentral/40-453676.html
 
From News & Observer Tuesday, March 2, 2004 12:00AM EST
http://www.news-observer.com/front/v-print/story/3382957p-3009317c.html

Spence loses job
http://www.nccu.edu/campus/athletics

Phil Spence led N.C. Central to the CIAA title game.
Staff Photo by Chuck Liddy

By A.J. CARR, Staff Writer

When Phil Spence arrived at his N.C. Central office Monday morning, he had numerous phone and e-mail messages congratulating him for leading the Eagles to the CIAA championship game in men's basketball.

At 12:30 p.m., he got another call. It was NCCU athletics director William Hayes, who invited the coach to drop by his office.

That's when Spence said he got the news that his contract would not be renewed.

"I think I deserved an extension, but the powers that be thought otherwise," said Spence, who had just completed his fourth year at N.C. Central.


Neither Hayes nor NCCU's chancellor, Dr. James Ammons, could be reached for comment.

In a statement released Monday by the university, Hayes said that "we feel we need to head in a new direction." The release also stated that the search for a replacement would begin with the formation of a search committee.

Former Shaw coach Joel Hopkins, who played on N.C. Central's 1989 Division II national championship team, said he would consider the opening if approached by his alma mater.

"Who would not want to coach back at their alma mater, where they won a national championship?" Hopkins said Monday night. "If they would want somebody like me, then I would listen. I love Central."


Hopkins coached Shaw to the Division II Final Four in 2002 but failed to reach a contract agreement with the Raleigh school later that year and has been out of basketball since. He said Monday he hadn't contacted NCCU or had any conversations with university officials about the coaching job.

In a recent interview, however, Hopkins said that if he decides to return to coaching, "it has to be the right job. If I ever really wanted a job, it would be somewhere like [N.C.] A&T or at my alma mater."

While indicating Monday night that he would find it challenging to lead a program that hasn't won a CIAA title since 1950, Hopkins said he would support N.C. Central "whether they hire me or not. I don't want to divide my university. ... It's not about Joel Hopkins."


Spence, who played on N.C. State's 1974 national championship team, guided the Eagles to the West Division title in 2003 and was named the CIAA's coach of the year.

This season, the Eagles went 13-12 in the regular season and then won three league tournament games, including a first-round upset of top-seeded Bowie State. But in their fourth game in four nights, the Eagles lost the final Saturday night, 81-72 to No. 2 seed Virginia Union.

That left Spence, 49, with an overall record of 49-63.

"I asked Hayes the reason for [not extending his contract]," Spence said. "He said, 'Your record is 49-63.' I asked if there was any other reason, and he said, 'Your record is 49-63.' "

Still, Spence said, his release came as a "surprise" in light of a conversation with Ammons before Saturday's championship game.

"Before the game, he said he would give me enough [funds] to get the best players," Spence said. "After the game, he came by and said, 'Good game, nice game,' and told me to start thinking long term."

Spence, who enjoyed success in high school coaching stints at both Cary and East Wake, said N.C. Central's program is progressing.

"We have eight players returning," he said, "and there are three D-I [Division I] prospects who were waiting to see if I was going to come back."

He said he also tried to do more than build a winning program.

"Our players have graduated; they have a great appearance; they are well-mannered. I've tried to run a real class program."
 
AN EYE ON '05

Stitt will be entering final year of his contract at Winston-Salem State


By John Dell
JOURNAL REPORTER
Friday, February 27, 2004

This was the final game of the season for Alleggrie Guinn and his WSSU teammates.
(AP PHOTO)

RALEIGH

With about a minute left in a 67-58 loss to Virginia State on Wednesday in the first round of the CIAA Tournament, Coach Philip Stitt of Winston-Salem State couldn't watch anymore.

His Rams, who had tried to crawl out of a deep hole, had expended so much energy they had nothing left. So Stitt sat down on the bench, folded his arms and had a look that seemed to say "this season is finally over."

It's hard to pinpoint just what went wrong with the Rams, who finished 16-12. They had three seniors - Jay Maynard, Vince Sessoms and John Adams - and plenty of inexperienced underclassmen. Fans might have expected more when the Rams reached mid-January with a 14-4 record, but the reality was that the team suffered from inconsistency at nearly every position.

Stitt just completed his third season and next season will be in the final year of a contract that pays him about $75,000 a year. And he has heard rumors about his job status. The Rams went 3-8 in their last 11 games and lost in the first round of the tournament for the first time since 1996.

"To tell you truth, I don't concern myself with it," Stitt said of the rumors. "This season ended, so now we have to start working on next season. So that's all I'll concern myself with is trying to get us better for next year. If something happens beyond that, whether I stay or go, it's out of my control. I just want to try to make this next team the best possible team."

WSSU went 22-7 and reached the Division II playoffs in Stitt's first season, when he was the interim coach. Last season, an obvious rebuilding year, the Rams pleasantly surprised their fans with a 15-14 finish. So expectations for this season were high, especially after WSSU defeated seventh-ranked Queens in early January.

Stitt couldn't pinpoint what went wrong, but there were plenty of tough times late in the season. The most disappointing for Stitt came when players questioned strategy in a 97-65 loss to N.C. Central in Durham. But even through that, Stitt has maintained a positive outlook.

"That's part of the deal," he said about the nature of coaching.

As for fans who wouldn't mind a coaching change, Stitt said: "I don't know, nor do I care. All I care about are these 12 guys, and I feel bad for the way it ended for them, but at the same time, I'm proud of them because most people didn't think we'd win 16 games."

When asked Wednesday about the status of Stitt and John Williams, whose WSSU women's team went 12-14 and also lost its CIAA Tournament opener, Athletics Director Percy Caldwell said: "I won't mince any words, I'm very disappointed about the seasons for both the men and the women.

"Again, I recognize we've got some young kids, so the coaches have got to step it up. We've got another year to evaluate very closely. I'm not discouraged about where we are going.

"I still think we are going in the right direction, but we won't have another year like this."

Caldwell, a former basketball coach who spent 21 seasons on the bench, said he knows how emotion can lead to hasty judgments. So as he has done after every season, he will sit down with Stitt and with Williams to talk about the season and about what can be done for their teams to improve.

After Wednesday's game, Caldwell said he decided to check his e-mail and found at least 25 messages about the men losing in the first round. "I stopped checking them after awhile," he said.

Caldwell said he will most likely meet with Stitt in the next two weeks. Stitt's immediate plans are to start recruiting and to attend some high-school playoff games.

"The worst thing you do after a disappointing season like this is make any emotional decisions," Caldwell said. "To me, it's too easy to make decisions on emotion, and this is business. So my philosophy is you take a step back, look at the overall situation, go back and see where the program is going."

Rashad McGee, a junior point guard, acknowledges that there has been plenty of talk about Stitt's status. "There's a little buzz about that," McGee said. "But I can't control that."

McGee, who struggled late in the season and looked worn out near the end of many games, said: "I'll play for whoever they bring in, if they do make a change. But Coach Stitt is somebody who brought me in, and I'll play for him any time. I would like to see him back."

When the Rams were playing well this season, the keys to their success were clear. They were one of the best passing teams in the CIAA, but the crisp half-court offense wasn't the same once the meat of the conference schedule hit.

"Communications and focus were the two things that we lacked the most," McGee said of the season's second half. "And we had a young team, and I think these young guys don't understand sometimes the severity of situations. You have to be ready for practice every day, and you can't have it one day and then don't bring it the next. With 12 guys, everybody has to be going in the right direction, and we didn't have that most of the time."

Even though Stitt will lose three seniors to graduation, he will still have plenty of firepower next season. Audly Wehner, the team's leading scorer and rebounder, was one of the bright spots and the CIAA rookie of the year. He played center, but at 6-6, he is probably more of a power forward. Alleggrie Guinn, who had plenty of disagreements with Stitt, is the team's best athlete and best defender.

Guinn, who will be a junior next season, was unavailable for comment after Wednesday's game. If he can establish some consistency, he could be one of the top players in the CIAA next season.

Roy Peake, a point guard from Thomasville who redshirted, should give the Rams some depth at that position.

"We've got to go out and try to find somebody at every position," Stitt said. "I think what we've got coming back, we've got a chance to make a run at this thing."

While Stitt is recruiting, Caldwell said that he and Chancellor Harold Martin will have a discussion about the basketball programs.

"What is the best interest in the university?" Caldwell said. "And Dr. Martin and I will have a very candid conversation between the two of us. We'll look at the direction and where we are going.... Until we find some other reasons, these are our coaches.

"And I'm going to evaluate, and they'll have to do some things that I will lay out if they want to continue to be our coaches."

? John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at jdell@wsjournal.com

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