Things aren’t exactly standing still on the athletics side of Mississippi State University, and with Rick Stansbury retiring as of last week, the faces of MSU are changing as well.
Most of the current State students grew up with only vague memories of watching anybody other than Stansbury coach the MSU men’s basketball team. The Stansbury brand of basketball was what we grew up watching. The same could be said of recently-retired women’s coach Sharon Fanning-Otis, who stepped down after her 17th season at the head of the program and has moved into a fundraising role with the Bulldog Club.
Instead of letting his voice boom through radio speakers, Jack Cristil now spends his days in Tupelo undergoing kidney dialysis. His appearance at the MSU men’s basketball game vs. Arkansas where a banner was hung in his honor might be one of his last hoorahs on campus.
Hank Flick, one of the most entertaining and memorable public address announcers MSU has ever had, hasn’t been behind a microphone at the Hump in over three years, though he’s still going strong in the classroom.
There are kids who only know Jackie Sherrill as the guy who does commercials for The Veranada (how else would we know where the flavor is?). Nevermind that no football coach at MSU has come close to the consistent success he had in the 1990s.
The Mississippi State era my generation grew up watching and being a part of reached its final stage during last Thursday’s emotional press conference to announce Stansbury’s retirement.
Even during his final few years as head coach at MSU, Stansbury did not quite fit the mold of the image the rest of the athletic department had. Everything from the hire of Dan Mullen to the aggressive marketing campaigns to having the youngest athletic director in the league (until Ross Bjork takes over for Pete Boone at Ole Miss in April) portrayed an image of excitement and a department not afraid to try new things. But Stansbury was still the same guy we had been watching for over a decade.
His hair may be a little grayer, his kids are gradually getting older, but the on-court product for Stansbury’s basketball teams reached the point where it was just the status quo. His more talented teams would win the SEC West, maybe make a run in the SEC Tournament. The less talented would hover above .500 and miss out on the NCAA Tournament. Players would transfer from the program regularly (and more so in his final years).
This season looked to be the year that the status quo would finally be changed. A team with top-15 talent made it through non-conference play with only two losses and appeared ready to lift MSU up over the hurdle of making the Sweet 16, which has not been done since 1998. Instead, a late-season collapse highlighted by losses to SEC bottom-feeders left MSU back in the NIT, where it lost in the first round to the University of Massachusetts.
Coming in below the status quo this season was not an acceptable outcome in the eyes of MSU fans, and that caused Stansbury’s seat to get awfully hot. Fortunately, an agreement for Stansbury to retire was reached, saving athletic director Scott Stricklin from a difficult decision.
Although Stansbury did not rule out a return to coaching, he will now have more time to spend with his family, something he stressed last week.
The attention now turns to who Stricklin will hire as MSU’s next basketball coach, the third head coaching hire during his tenure as athletic director. Reports have surfaced that Murray State coach Steve Prohm has been contacted on behalf of MSU. Parker Executive Search, a firm based out of Atlanta, has been brought on to assist with finding the new coach.
However, that coach will not be Stansbury. The last pieces of that era have moved on. Now it’s time for the basketball program to join the rest of the athletic department in moving forward.