This past Wednesday, the Austin Toros named Quin Snyder to be their new head coach. Snyder will take over for interim coach Dale Osbourne, who took the reins last February after the untimely death of Dennis Johnson.
Snyder is a former college basketball player and coach who helped lead Duke University to the Final Four in 1986, 1988, and 1989 before becoming an assistant under legendary coach and American Express pitchman Mike Krzyzewski. In 1999, Snyder became the head coach at the University of Missouri, where he led the fightin’ Tigers to four consecutive NCAA tournament berths before resigning in 2006. His record during his time in the Show-Me State was 127-91.
We won’t know the Toros lineup until the fall, but with any luck, coach Synder will have ’06-’07 standouts B.J. Elder, Cheyne Gadson, and – my guy – Justin Bowen back to help guide him through the early, rocky months and get the team on track after a tough ’06-’07 season. If not, I humbly offer my services. It would be a great honor for me to do my part to help the team, and despite what the scouting reports, conventional basketball wisdom, and simple common sense might say, I think if I just work a little more on my shooting, dribbling, passing, defending, jumping, and running, I’ll be ready for tip-off come November.
With me or without, Snyder will have his work cut out for him – coming as he is to a team that has yet to know the warm glow of a winning season – but he’s also got the fates on his side: Surely they won’t be so cruel to our Toros two years in a row. If they are, we as a city may have to consider the possibility that we’ve got some sort of inherited curse on our heads that can only be wiped clean through communal acts of appeasement, be they sacrificial or purgatorial, vegetable or mineral.
So, welcome, Mr. Snyder, to Austin. Get comfortable, have a look around, make yourself at home. And please, in the name of all things decent, get us to the playoffs. I don’t think we could handle another season like the last one.
This article appears in June 8 • 2007.