Modesto JC’s basketball coaching choice – one-year experiment or the new norm?

Three sports fans approached me this week and asked the same question, edited for public consumption:

What in the world is going on at Modesto Junior College?

My edited answer:

If I knew, I wouldn’t be doing this for a living.

Mike Girardi, the Pirates’ women’s basketball coach the past 12 seasons, will assume the head coaching duties of both the men’s and women’s teams next season. This never has been done at MJC basketball and is a rare occurrence elsewhere for obvious reasons: One coaching job is enough. Two, especially two at the same time, requires a 48-hour day.

The last time I checked, that clock hasn’t yet been invented.

Practice-planning. Player-counseling. Player-discipline. Player-encouragement. Assistant-coach huddling. Film-watching. Stressing about your injured power forward. Finding ways to defend the 25-points-per-game start you’re facing tomorrow night. Putting up with ink-stained blokes like yours truly. Communicating with concerned parents. Bringing home milk at night. And that’s not counting game nights and almost constant recruiting.

Then, multiply by two.

Girardi asked for that assignment and got it from Athletic Director Nick Stavrianoudakis. Credit Girardi, a passionate basketball man and a Valley product, for the ambition required to even consider such a task. Reality tells us, however, that each team needs its own coach.

Anything less and MJC, right or wrong, is perceived as caring less for basketball today than it did yesterday. One can argue it’s paid a disservice to both programs. Student-athletes deserve the same full commitment, both physical and emotional, coaches demand from them. They need someone who will cushion their falls, measure their successes and push them through tough times.

Girardi insists he’ll be there for each player, but try as he will, it simply can’t be done. Unless he splits himself into equal parts, of course. The last thing he wants to be is a coach-as-CEO.

It follows that the performance of his assistant coaches will be crucial. Fortunately for him and his future sanity, his classload has been lightened.

Granted, MJC didn’t seek this arrangement. It was caught in a jam following the resignation of men’s coach Paul Brogan, who remains on staff. No full-time position was available, so the athletic department was forced into an awkward place.

Stavrianoudakis opted to go with Girardi, already a physical education department employee. The A.D. could have filled the men’s position with an adjunct (not full-time) hire, a not-unusual move given MJC’s five adjunct coaches on the payroll. Qualified and interested candidates were everywhere, even in MJC’s gym. An off-campus coach might have more time for the task than Girardi.

Another thing: MJC is bigger than the choice it made.

The Pirates field 21 teams across the sports spectrum. Among California’s 106 community colleges that compete athletically, only three – El Camino, Orange Coast and Palomar – boast more (22 apiece).

Modesto may not win many basketball games (a fact reinforced each winter), but it’s been a good steward of the game. A case in point is the annual 16-team tournament, a regular-season fixture for nearly eight decades.

Simply, the decision doesn’t fit the school’s sports M.O. Or does it? Is this 2-for-1 deal the new norm?

Meanwhile, larger changes continue. Longtime former MJC baseball coach and instructor Bo Aiello has retired. His position in the department will be filled, pending approval next month by the Yosemite Community College District Board, by Zeb Brayton, who will continue as coach.

Which means that, within the last year, MJC has undergone major personnel changes in the three major sports. The transitions to Brayton and football coach Rusty Stivers have been more smooth than what’s happened in basketball.

One can only hope Girardi’s upcoming year will be a one-off, an experiment. I don’t believe the school’s sports leadership is as indifferent to hoops as this move suggests. But the optics are not good.

If MJC doesn’t care, why should future players? And why should we?

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 4:17 PM with the headline "Modesto JC’s basketball coaching choice – one-year experiment or the new norm?."