As the Mississippi State baseball team battled for its figurative life in Game 6 of the Tallahassee Regional against Florida State, MSU athletic director Zac Selmon had already moved on to other things.
Rumors had swirled for the better part of a week that Selmon was set to hire Virginia coach Brian O’Connor to the same position with the Bulldogs, and those rumors proved to be true as the announcement was made just about an hour after the game ended, an excruciating 5-2 loss to Florida State.
To be fair, getting “Coach Oak” to leave Virginia after last year’s College World Series run and the extension he had signed that would’ve kept him Charlottesville through 2027 was a coup. O’Connor, a Hall of Fame inductee, won a national championship with the Cavaliers in 2015 and has authored more than 900 wins across his storied career as a head coach. In 22 seasons at Virginia, he led the Cavaliers to 18 NCAA tournament appearances (including 14 straight) and seven trips to Omaha, which ranks third among active coaches.
He now seems poised to succeed at a place that cares more about baseball than almost anything else, and stands as the best hire of the Selmon era until proven otherwise.
But, like a lot of moves in college sports these days, the style took precedence over the substance, as current Bulldog players and coaches found themselves stuck in the crossfire: How do you salvage a season you’re still fighting for when it already seems to be over in the minds of departmental senior leadership?
There’s precedent for this; it happens all the time in college football. Coaches are fired midseason and new ones hired during bowl season. ESPN loves to interview the incoming coach while his new team plays in the Bahamas Bowl under an interim staff with half the players already in the portal. It’s cruel, it’s strange, but it is transparent. The postseason is a reward for the players, staff and coaches who are still around (but may soon be asked to leave).
To his credit, Parker embraced the “us against the world” mentality as his squad salvaged the season and qualified for the postseason. But by the end, it was clear the stress and uncertainty had taken its toll. Parker said as much during his postgame comments Sunday night.
“I credit these guys for staying focused, locked in,” Parker told the assembled media. “They love each other, they love playing for each other. I wish a lot of the rumors weren’t flying around. I wish there was a little more patience with the process, but I get it.”
Patience seems to be a lost art these days, and nowhere is that more evident than in college sports. Selmon had options that benefitted both the current and future squads. If O’Connor was the guy, as it seemed he was from the start of the process, why not make the announcement as soon as the figurative ink dried, a week earlier? Virginia had already been eliminated from postseason contention, so their players were in limbo, too.
Or, alternatively, this entire process could’ve waited until the season actually ended. O’Connor wasn’t leaving Virginia for any other job; he was in the first season of an extension. Of the positions conceivably ranked above his former one, Mississippi State’s was the only one open. State was only competing with itself.
In sports, timing is everything; you have to know when to swing, when to run, and, increasingly, when to leave. So the next time you find yourself frustrated that a 21-year-old made a business decision whose timing you disagree with, just remember where he or she learned it.
Philip Poe is The Dispatch’s sports editor.
Philip Poe is sports editor.
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