Lots of good stuff here Todd Golden Q&A: His plan to 'get Florida back to being a national title contender' Your San Francisco team capped a monumental season by reaching the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1998. Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin had to balance a coaching search with being respectful of candidates who are involved in March Madness. In the aftermath of Thursday night’s overtime loss to Murray State, walk me through how the agreement came together. It was a situation where Scott informed me that I was on their radar and they said, ‘as soon as you’re done coaching your team and getting them as far as they can go, we can get together and see if this makes some sense.’ So after we got eliminated, things got sped up pretty quickly. I felt fortunate to meet with Scott and Lynda (Tealer) and Chip (Howard) and we came to a resolution quickly Friday, before we got on the plane heading back to San Francisco. It all moved really, really fast. I think both sides felt really comfortable with each other from the onset and felt like there was no reason to waste any time. The Gators face Xavier in the second round of the NIT on Sunday under interim coach Al Pinkins. Have you dug into any level of self-scouting and begun assessing a roster that has seven seniors? Right now I’m being respectful and allowing the current athletes in the program to finish their season. There have been some distractions for them because of coach White leaving, and I don’t want to add to that. I want to give the players, coach Pinkins, Eric (Pastrana) and the rest of the staff the chance to finish strong in the NIT. As soon as that is over, I’m going to reach out to the young men in the program and introduce myself. I’ve already been in touch with the signees, trying to continue to build relationships with them and make sure they feel comfortable with Florida being their home.
Liked this too: Stricklin sought Donovan’s input this week, and though you guys haven’t crossed paths, he sounded supportive of your hiring. I reached out to get in touch with him Saturday morning. One of my big pushes is to involve a lot of these guys who were at Florida in the most successful times. I talked to Chandler Parsons that morning also. I’m going to reach out to guys like Jo Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green. I want those guys to feel like we’re all doing this together. They understand what it takes because they did it here. I want them to feel a level of investment in our program. I want them to come around in summer, to be playing with our guys and supporting them. It’s such a great alumni base and it can be really valuable to us.
You mentioned Megan, a former volleyball standout at Saint Mary’s. Now you have two children and they have to be exceptional athletes, right? My son’s got a chance. He is 5 1/2 and he’s more a baseball/golf guy. I’m really excited to get him in the baseball community down there. He just had a T-ball game Saturday morning. He’s rocking the ball to the outfield and no other kids can even hit it in the air. It’s pretty neat. He’s like a little sports encyclopedia. A sports freak. And something that’s so random: Last year one of the guys on my staff started watching Florida Gators football highlights with him. He loved the Gators — I guess it was the cool colors and the mascot. When I got to tell him yesterday that I was going to be the head coach of the Gators you should have seen his eyes, man. They grew to the size of saucers. You’re going to see him around the gym, at the football and baseball games. He’ll eat it all up. Love that.
