Wishing Mike Muse Well
I’ve known Mike Muse for a long, long time. I’ve known his father even longer. Big Tom, as we called him, was a fixture in local high school athletics when I moved to Winston-Salem in 1978. He was in the prime of a long and highly successful run as head basketball coach at Parkland High School. Mike’s children grew up with mine. My daughter, Rebecca, was in the same grade in the same school with Katie Muse, Mike and Deborah’s oldest of three, from kindergarten through high school. Both Rebecca and Nate, our son, were taught by Mike at North Forsyth High School and had nothing but great things to say about him.
So I was glad to see Mike join the Wake Forest basketball staff three years ago and I hate to see him leave this summer. He was always one of my favorite people to run into around campus and I’ll miss seeing him at practices and games.
The reasons Muse left have not been fully explained and may never be. In the article John Dell wrote for the Journal while I was on vacation, Muse took the high road and said nothing but nice things about Wake Forest and his time at the school. When John asked him if the move had anything to do with his reassignment back to the role of director of basketball operations, the post he held before being promoted to assistant coach before the 2007-08 season, Muse declined comment. Nothing really needed to be said. Many times Muse has described coaching basketball at Wake Forest as a dream job. People don’t leave a dream job to pursue other, unspecified opportunities if they’re happy.
Coach Dino Gaudio, for his part, also remained above the fray by praising Muse for his ability and his contributions to Wake Forest basketball.
When Muse was reassigned to DOBO a couple of months ago, following the departure of assistant Pat Kelsey to Xavier and the decision by Gaudio and Athletics Director Ron Wellman to overhaul the staff with the addition of not one, but two coaches, Gaudio explained it as an effort to make the overall program stronger. He said he went into the process thinking that he would be adding one assistant, but was encouraged by Wellman to look at the staff as a whole. When the dust settled, and Rusty LaRue and Dave Wojcik had been brought aboard, Mike found himself back in a job he had left three years ago, only this time while sharing the role with the incumbent DOBO, Walt Corbean. It’s easy to see why Muse might consider his position untenable.
As a sportswriter, I’ve never been much for telling the people I cover how to run their business. I’ve never been a regular columnist, so I’ve never had the need. And I have enough difficulty doing my own job without trying to do someone else’s.
But one way of looking at this summer’s dramatic upheaval of a college basketball staff coming off a 24-win season is as the continued shakeout of Skip Prosser’s tragic death two summers ago. At the time Wellman’s options were few. Almost any coach who might be right for Wake Forest was under contract and the Deacons had a highly celebrated recruiting class coming in. He made the right move in promoting Gaudio and keeping the staff intact, and has been rewarded for the decision with 41 victories over the past two years and his program’s return to contention in the ACC.
But the Deacons’ flameout in March, followed by the departure of sophomores Jeff Teague and James Johnson to the NBA and Kelsey to Xavier, was a blow that is still reverberating around the program. Somebody, maybe Wellman, maybe Gaudio, maybe both, sized up the staff and decided an upgrade was in order. Were they right? Ask me in about eight months and I might have an answer.
Meanwhile I’m pulling for Mike Muse to land on his feet and have every reason to think that he will. He’s a good coach and a better person with a lot more friends around Winston-Salem than just me.