Southeast has hard decision among coach candidates

The three finalists who interviewed over the past several days for the Southeast Missouri State football coaching vacancy all came across mighty impressive during their public forums that I attended.

But I expected nothing less from Washburn head coach Craig Schurig, Missouri Western head coach Jerry Partridge and Purdue assistant Tony Samuel, who is a former head coach at New Mexico State.

If a person gets to the point where he is being seriously considered for a Division I-AA head coaching spot, then you figure he's already accomplished enough to make him seem like a very viable candidate.

The tough part for Southeast officials is to decide which of the three gives the university the best chance of building a solid program -- and that is usually plenty difficult to determine.

I have no idea who will end up being offered the job in the next few days, but I am glad that all three have previous college head coaching experience.

To me, being the head coach of a football program, where upwards of 100 people are generally involved, is almost like being the CEO of a company with a similar number of employees.

It takes so much organization and attention to detail, and I'm not sure you can actually be prepared for it if you haven't already experienced it.

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All the facts are not yet known -- and maybe never will be -- regarding the four Southeast football players who were recently charged with assault centering around the ambush beating of two Southeast students at a party.

I only know one of the four personally -- freshman tailback Tim Holloman -- and have to admit I was fairly stunned when I heard he was allegedly involved.

I don't profess to know Holloman real well, but the several times I interviewed him following games during his impressive rookie season, he appeared to be just about the most humble, soft-spoken -- even shy -- young man you could imagine.

In other words, Holloman seemed to be the last type of person that would get involved in something like that -- but you just never know what people will do in certain situations.

It's going to be interesting to see what ends up coming out of the whole ordeal regarding the four, who have been suspended indefinitely by athletic director Don Kaverman pending further information and the hiring of the new coach.

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In sports, things often change quickly. And the college basketball season is a fairly long grind.

But right now, after just a few games of the Ohio Valley Conference men's schedule, Murray State and Tennessee Tech appear to be by far the cream of the crop.

Preseason favorite Murray State has destroyed its first two conference opponents, crushing defending OVC tournament champion Eastern Kentucky 80-51 and Morehead State 92-40.

Defending OVC regular-season champ Tennessee Tech has won its first three league games, beating Southeast and Austin Peay comfortably, and squeezing out an overtime victory at Eastern Illinois.

Tennessee Tech also has the OVC's two best nonconference wins so far, routing Oregon State and beating a Wisconsin-Milwaukee team that returned four starters from last year's NCAA Sweet 16 squad.

Where Southeast fits into the picture remains to be seen. The Redhawks are 1-2 in conference play and have not been very impressive for much of the season, although they had by far their best showing Friday night against Central Methodist.

Optimism about the Redhawks' 81-49 romp has to be tempered because it came against an average NAIA club, but at least Southeast finally got its sputtering offense going.

Now, as the 4-4 Redhawks prepare for a two-game road trip to Alabama -- they play Samford on Monday and Jacksonville State on Wednesday -- it will be interesting to see if Friday's performance was simply an aberration against an overmatched foe, or a sign of things to come.

We shall soon find out.

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On the OVC women's side, even though Southeast fans were disheartened by the home overtime loss to Tennessee Tech on Dec. 10, I still think the Redhawks will be in the running for the title in what I expect to be a two-horse race between them and the Eaglettes.

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A high school basketball player from Southeast Missouri who was recruited by virtually all of America's premier programs last year is creating quite a buzz during the early stages of his rookie college season.

Poplar Bluff's Tyler Hansbrough, a freshman forward at North Carolina, has already established himself as the defending national champion Tar Heels' leading scorer.

The youthful Tar Heels lost all of their top players from last year and were not very highly regarded nationally entering this season, although that might change with their recent upset of Kentucky.

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One game does not make a season, but the home loss to Sam Houston State in its opener is certainly not what Missouri's basketball team needed to start the year.

Coach Quin Snyder is already on the hot seat, and that upset probably only heated things up even more.

Also no doubt not helping the Tigers' cause was their recent defeat at Davidson, although I don't really consider that an upset, since Davidson is among those good mid-major programs that many people don't know about -- and it's not like Missouri is anything special these days.

Overall, it's hard to imagine the Tigers doing well enough in the Big 12 to make the NCAA Tournament and save Snyder's job -- which appears to be what he needs -- although that remains to be seen.

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A few weeks ago I commented on the amazing debut of Rams' rookie quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who led that remarkable comeback against the Texans.

Well, now Fitzpatrick has experienced life as an NFL signal caller on the other end of the fence as he has had two fairly rough outings, capped by last Sunday's miserable five-interception game against the Vikings.

But it was not realistic to think that Fitzpatrick would just tear up the NFL right off the bat. Most quarterbacks who were first-round draft picks struggle initially, let alone a seventh-rounder from a non-football factory like Harvard.

What has happened recently doesn't mean Fitzpatrick won't eventually be a good player -- it only means that we really don't know yet, and probably won't for quite a while.

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Let's hope Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty can pull off some of the late magic in acquiring key players that he is well known for.

It appears as if St. Louis is going to need Jocketty's deft touch more than ever for the 2006 season.

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.