There are constituents from every segment of the college basketball community whose St. Patrick’s Day celebration was made merrier by the news that Seton Hall fired coach Bobby Gonzalez at high noon yesterday.
“There are 15 coaches in this league that can play together in the sand box,” said one league coach who wished to remain anonymous. “And one coach who can’t.”
Gonzalez honed his polarizing style over seven years at Manhattan, where he had remarkable success on the court while alienating every segment of the population off the court.
Seton Hall knew Gonzalez was a human coaching grenade whose pin had been pulled. Still, the school hired him.
It knew because on a telephone conference call yesterday to discuss Gonzalez’s firing, Monsignor Robert Sheeran, Seton Hall’s outgoing president, said he spoke to Brother Thomas Scanlan, his counterpart at Manhattan, for an assessment of Gonzalez.
So Seton Hall knew what it was getting four years ago when it fired a dignified and successful coach in Louis Orr and hired Gonzalez, a bright, shining blight.
The Gonzo act continued at Seton Hall. Gonzalez won (66-59 overall, 19-13 this season) but his Pirate program sailed under a Jolly Roger flag.
Keon Lawrence, a transfer from Missouri, crashed his car driving the wrong way on the Garden State Parkway and was suspended for the first eight games of the season. Charges are pending.
Robert Mitchell, a transfer from Duquesne who was dismissed from the team Sunday night after criticizing Gonzalez during the recent Big East Conference Tournament, was arrested Tuesday in Newark on charges of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree robbery, third-degree burglary and second- and third-degree weapons possessions.
And with a national television audience watching Tuesday night, another transfer, Herb Pope, was ejected from the Pirates’ 87-69 loss to Texas Tech in an opening-round NIT game for twice punching a player in the groin. Gonzalez also was called for a technical foul.
“Obviously, everyone who saw the game last night saw a crystallization of all that was really wrong with the coaching and the leadership,” said Pat Hobbs, dean of the law school who also oversees athletics.
It’s time for quality leadership to assert itself at Seton Hall, one of the Big East’s eight founding members.
While Gonzalez was running the basketball program like a disgruntled MTA motorman, the administration allowed him to board passengers with checkered pasts. No one pulled the emergency stop cord.
In fact, The Post has learned that as recently as last week, Seton Hall was considering another extension for Gonzalez, who last September was extended through 2015.
Ironically, at about the same time Gonzalez was being told of his firing yesterday, Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti was wisely telling Fred Hill that he would be retained as the Scarlet Knights’ coach. Hill is just 47-67 at Rutgers and was swept by Seton Hall, but his program is run with dignity.
“The league has always had a lot of pride in its programs, its coaches and its institutions,” said Dan Gavitt, the league’s associate commissioner for men’s basketball. “We’re all in this together. I think every program would agree with that.”
If Seton Hall agrees, it can say so with its next hire. From Honey Russell to P.J. Carlesimo to Orr, Seton Hall has found good men who can win.
“Monsignor Sheeran always says this, as soon as they’re hired, [the basketball coach] becomes the best known individual at the university,” said Hobbs. “They become the face of the university.”
Yesterday might have been a day for merriment, but at Seton Hall, sobriety must rule. Winning is a lofty ambition, but the face of the program, of the university, can’t make the public wince.
lenn.robbins@nypost.com