VanDelaySports.com > MAC Basketball > Editorial: My Take on the Firing of Stan Joplin

Editorial: My Take on the Firing of Stan Joplin

It is with heavy heart that I heard of Coach Stan Joplin’s dismissal at UT today. As a proud Rocket alum, I immediately thought back to 1984, my freshman year at Toledo, when I played pick-up basketball during lunch at Centennial Hall, now known as Savage Hall. I was one of least talented kids on the court but ‘then’ assistant coach Stan Joplin, who almost always joined us for a game during the lunch hour, always picked me to be on his team and made sure I got the ball. Nearly 25 years ago, Stan had a heart and made sure everyone got involved as he showed class and kindness to all. He was my idol in junior high back when I rooted for the star-studded UT teams of the late 1970s with Tim Selgo, Dick Miller, Harvey Knuckles and Jim Swaney. I have good memories of playing with Stan in 1984-85.

Twelve years ago I was ecstatic when Stan was hired as head coach. I felt that he should have been hired much earlier; back after the Jay Eck debacle. Coach Joplin got things moving forward fairly quickly during his reign, especially with the likes of Greg Spempin as one of his first recruits. But underneath every one of his teams, there was always something missing during Stan’s tenure. Early on, it was lack of quality and quick guards. Then as time went on, Stan never could recruit post players.

Coach Joplin also made some colossal blunders during his time coaching, especially at MAC Madness in Cleveland. There was the poorly timed timeout against Ball State in 2000 quarterfinals when he called a TO during Nick Moore’s ‘made’ three-pointer that would have won the game against the Cardinals. BSU eventually won in OT 64-63 and went on to win the tourney title. The following year against Ohio, again in the quarterfinals, he called a TO when Greg Stempin, one of the best players in the league that year, had the ball in his hands during the final seconds and was driving to the basket with no one in front of him. Stempin was furious and after the time-out and even madder when freshman Terry Reynolds took the rock to the hole and the ball was swatted away by Patrick Flomo with no time left as the Bobcats went on to win by that same 64-63 score.

Toledo always seemed snake-bit during Stan’s reign at the end of the season. Either through injuries, fluke stomach flues, or just plain and simple knucklehead plays from the likes of Terry Reynolds, Justin Hall or Keith Triplet making poor decisions at the wrong time.

Toledo basketball certainly went upwards during Stan’s tenure, but over the past few years they have plummeted right back down. As good of a guy and X's and O's coach that Stan Joplin was, he was not a salesman for the program locally and failed to recruit the greater Toledo area. While Toledo does not produce very many DI football players, they do have outstanding high school basketball and few, if any, ever even took a look at UT during the recruiting process over this last decade. In fact, Toledo is surrounded by high school talent in Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton and the entire state of Indiana. Yet, UT’s recent classes have brought in players from Boston, Chicago, Texas and New York City. These recruits were not the household names the locals knew or even could relate too.

You have to think that AD Mike O’Brien looked at how quickly former Kent State and Rutgers Coach Gary Waters took a pathetic Cleveland State program, and immediately got them to 20 wins in just two seasons. Waters has signed some of the best players in NE Ohio over the past two seasons as well. You have to think that O’Brien looked down the road at Bowling Green and saw former Seton Hall Coach Louis Orr take a group of rag-tag misfits that Dan Dakich left behind, and saw how quickly he got that team to nearly have a .500 season during his first season at Anderson Arena.

You just have to think that O’Brien saw that the Toledo job is one of the really plum mid-major jobs nationally and Stan Joplin wasn’t getting it done. With a newly refurbished Savage Hall coming this November and another grueling non-conference schedule, O’Brien must have wondered if another five of eight incoming recruits would be ineligible again, and more twenty and thirty point losses were coming at him again.

Stan weathered many storms and many witch hunts by the local Toledo Blade during his coaching career at UT. He never let his emotions get to him when they wrote marvelous articles about BG’s Dan Dakich, even during his bad seasons (which were many), and consistently rode Coach Joplin with many incorrect and often flat-out lies about his program and coaching abilities. Stan was too nice of a guy to let a few beat writers, many whom are no longer employed by The Blade, to change his way of running the program or his way of showing patience, class and dignity to his players and staff.

In the end, Coach Joplin being a nice guy probably got him fired. He was far too lenient with far too many players during his tenure. He is a terrific coach, and a terrific person. Unfortunately for Toledo, that doesn’t put butts in the seats, get local talent interested in staying at home, or make the NCAA Tournament anytime soon.

I will miss Coach Joplin. The league will miss him. But for UT’s basketball program to ever go back to their glory days and bring back a consistent winner to Bancroft Street, AD Mike O’Brien did need to make this decision. It was surprising. It was painful for many of the Rocket faithful. But it needed to be done.

Thank you Stan for your twelve years, you made this program much better than what you inherited in 1996. It never quite got to the point that everyone thought you would take it too, but we all wish you the very best going forward.

Nick Gerogosian
www.VandelaySports.com