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St. John's Athletic Director Chris Monasch: The Dumbest Executive In College Athletics?

The joke knows it himself: he is not a "coach." He knows he can't be anything more than an ESPN blowhard getting ready to be the next Duke Vitale like mascot of tWWL.
The joke knows it himself: he is not a "coach." He knows he can't be anything more than an ESPN blowhard getting ready to be the next Duke Vitale like mascot of tWWL.

We can all make a good case for it if this turns out to be true:

So you think St. John's can't get a big-name coach? Think again. Former UCLA coach Steve Lavin would be interested in leading the Red Storm.

On Friday the Daily News reported exclusively that Lavin had come up in St. John's discussions. He doesn't appear to be at the forefront of the current conversation, but maybe he should be. After being turned down by a pair of big-ticket coaches - Florida's Billy Donovan and Georgia Tech's Paul Hewitt - the Johnnies could use a brand name to embrace them. And Lavin would.

"I think he would like St. John's," a Lavin confidant told The News. "He referred to the program as a 'sleeping giant.'"

St. John's athletic director Chris Monasch listed ambitious criteria when he described on Dec. 19 the ideal candidate to succeed Norm Roberts. He wanted someone who had a track record of winning in the six so-called "power conferences" as well as in the NCAA Tournament. He wanted familiarity with the New York basketball scene and a history of successfully recruiting it. He wanted integrity.

It now looks like Monasch just might be dumb enough to consider giving Lavin a serious look. Lav's media buddies and ESPN shill are busy spreading around this story.

If Monasch actually gives Lav a serious look he will officially compete with North Carolina State's Lee Fowler for being the stupidest athletic director in all of college basketball. He was the last one who actually had a serious conversation about Lavin coaching a program. At that time it was interesting to see the divide between smart and not so clued in Wolfpack fans' reactions to Fowler's comical courting of Lavin.

Perhaps if he goes to a place like St. Johns he will be able to bring in one or two good recruiting classes like he was able to do in his first two years in Westwood taking advantage of the cache Jim Harrick rebuilt in Westwood. Yet sooner or later he will get exposed as a complete fraud. We have gone over in details about Lavin not just being the wost head coach in the history of UCLA basketball, but also being nothing short of a sleazebag. We can also go on about how in addition being completely incompetent he was also a classless and lazy SOB.

I believe it is a reasonable bet that this is nothing short of a PR plot on the part of Lavin and his business handler to show how his name can come up in a "serious manner" in relation to D-1 college basketball. When it comes to the profession of coaching Lavin's IQ is lower than an average Lane Kiffin recruited Trogan, but he was still smart enough to con Al Carnsale and Pete Dalis and take millions out of UCLA pretending to be a head coach. If he ever takes a head coaching job at any level, he is going to get exposed in a big way.

So while these "talks" of Lavin and St. John appears somewhat "serious" in the traditional media, I highly doubt Lavin himself has any kind of serious interest in coaching. It is never going to happen because Lavin more than anyone else knows he is not a "coach." He has the perfect job on tWWL that fits his skillz of a blowhard talking head. Why would he be serious about coaching when he can be in line for taking over for Duke Vitale as the jackass mascot of ESPN.

GO BRUINS.