MILLER REPORT: We’ll miss Billy

Another great era in Florida Gators athletics has come to an end as the Gator Nation bids the greatest basketball coach (and perhaps greatest coach of any kind) in University of Florida history makes the move to the NBA. Billy Donovan will be the new coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Florida will pick up the pieces and try to keep the momentum that Billy the Kid created for the program. This is much more like the departure of Spurrier than that of Meyer. It will be hard to find someone to follow Billy. You will notice that I did not mention the word replace. There is no replacing a coach of Billy’s caliber. Donovan did more with less advantages than any other NCAA basketball coach I can remember, maybe any college basketball coach ever. He dominated in a sport where his program was always at a recruiting disadvantage to the likes of Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas and UCLA.

Somehow Billy managed to convince just enough elite talent to not only join him at Florida but to also buy into his philosophy of team first and attention to fundamentals. Year after year, he put teams on the court that played sound basketball. He developed young talent into stars and the NBA is literally littered with former Gators. Yes, there were the occasional groups that struggled to grasp what he was teaching them but he always returned the Gators to prominence. What he did for the Florida Gator basketball program cannot be overstated. I could sit here and cite all of the records before and after Billy came to Gainesville but everyone knows them already. The ones that really matter are two national championships and four Final Fours. Enough said.

All there is left to do now, is say thank you to Billy. Thank you for the excitement. Thank you for making college basketball truly fun for Gator fans. Thank you not only for winning but for winning with class and dignity. Thank you for refusing to compromise your morals and ethics for the sake of winning and then finding a way to win anyway. I think I speak for the entire Gator Nation when I say that we wish you well and do not begrudge you following your dream to the next level in the slightest, regardless of what it may mean to the future of Gator basketball. You owe Gator fans nothing and we owe you everything. I anxiously await seeing you hoist an NBA championship trophy.

So just what does this mean for the future of Gator basketball? There is no replacing a Hall of Fame coach. Any ideas that Florida can do so is foolishness. Billy built this program virtually from scratch. The great news is that the next coach does not have to accomplish what Billy did, he only has to sustain or even build upon what Donovan has already built in Gainesville. While there might not be another Billy Donovan out there, quality coaches are available. It is up to athletic director Jeremy Foley to find the right one.

I will not claim to know who that right coach might be. There has already been talk about the two former head coaches already on the Gator coaching staff in Anthony Grant and John Pelphrey. I would caution Gator fans not to dismiss these options because they were not successful elsewhere. There is a big difference between maintaining an established program and building one that has little to no recruiting edge. That said, it is even more notable when a coach is successful with less talent. Don’t beat me up Gator fans for this suggestion, especially after the Muschamp fiasco, but Mark Fox at UGA has done some impressive things with almost zero elite talent. And, I’m not suggesting Foley should hire Fox, I’m just pointing out that there are quality coaches out there finding a way to compete with lesser players. I will leave that to Foley. What is important is that whoever gets the job is able to continue to recruit at a high level. To remain an elite program will require continuing to recruiting top talent.

It will begin with the new coach trying to hold onto the talent already in the program. There will be a kneejerk reaction by some of the current players and signees to transfer out now that Donovan is gone. If that can be avoided, the transition will be much easier. There are already some rumblings among the newest Gators. The new coach needs to come in and sell the team on the future of the program. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

Foley is on the clock. He will certainly have earned his money lately having replaced the football coach, and now replacing a Hall of Fame basketball coach and a gymnastics coach with three consecutive national titles. That is why you make the big bucks Mr. Foley. This is uncharted waters for Gator basketball and none of us know what to expect. All we can do is sit back, chew our fingernails and enjoy the ride. It should be interesting.

Mark Miller
Mark Miller's bravery knows no limits. He's a Gator living deep in the heart of Georgia. Mark's weekly columns appear in the Coosa Valley News in Rome, Georgia, where Gators are few and Bulldogs are many. His updates about football and life among the heathens will appear in Gator Country on a weekly basis.