Teague played his part at VCU, leaves for better job at Minnesota

Quinn Casteel

Assistant Sports Editor

For anyone questioning Norwood Teague’s character and his decision to leave VCU for the athletic director position at Minnesota, just stop now.

In six years with VCU, Teague did more for the school’s sports programs than many ADs will do in a decade or two and was liked – if not loved – by most everyone around the university. Among other accomplishments, he uncovered a transcendent basketball coach in Shaka Smart and found a way to keep him around even when he started getting multi-million dollar offers from high-major schools.

He hired a men’s soccer coach, in Dave Giffard, who has once again instilled a winning mentality in the program. The same goes for the women’s team, where Teague made an unorthodox but highly successful hire in Tim and Tiffany Sahaydak, who have made strides as a husband-and-wife head-coaching tandem. Even niche sports like tennis and golf sustained their dominance in the CAA throughout Teague’s tenure.

On top of everything on the field, VCU athletes are graduating at a higher rate than ever before with an average GPA of 3.0.

Teague has also played a major role in bringing VCU’s name recognition and revenues to an all-time high.

In other words, all the good things that Smart and the basketball team have been credited for, in regards to improving the university’s image the past couple years, can ultimately be traced back to Teague.

And for that, he should be applauded, not resented for taking a better job. And yes, let’s face it: Minnesota is a better job as an athletic director than VCU, and not just because of the pay raise.

As AD of the Golden Gophers, Teague gets to take the reins of a Big Ten football program in major need of a facelift but with very good potential. He is admittedly a football guy, which for the past six years of his life has been a void for him. Instead, he had to focus his attention on basketball, and all he did was help take VCU to a level that no one thought it had the capacity to reach.

But now, he enters an athletic director’s dream as he tries to rebuild the formerly strong football program at Minnesota. He also inherits a high-quality basketball program, which has made the NCAA Tournament two of the past three seasons under head coach Tubby Smith.

For Teague, the decision to make the move to Minnesota was a logical one, and he’s not exactly crippling the athletic department at VCU by doing so. He leaves the school with perhaps its brightest sports outlook in history, highlighted of course by the men’s basketball team.

The cynic’s perspective in all this is that Teague bailed on VCU’s athletic program, the basketball team and more specifically Smart, because Smart turned  down a Big Ten job with Illinois just a few weeks ago to stay with the Rams. Cynics would argue that Teague should have matched Smart’s loyalty and stayed along for the ride.

However, the more optimistic and frankly more rational view is that Teague’s position as an athletic director is not the same as Smart’s as a head coach.

Different people, different jobs.

As coach, Smart’s work at VCU is just getting started; if he leaves, the wheels come off. If Teague leaves, every thing is OK because his job was to lay the groundwork, not coach basketball or any other sport. Yes, he had plenty of other duties as well, but for the most part he’s done his job, and it was time for him to move on to other things.

That said, for all of you that are feeling cynical, circle Thanksgiving Weekend, Nov. 22-24 on your calendars. VCU and Minnesota are both in the eight-team field for the 2012 Battle 4 Atlantis preseason men’s basketball tournament in the Bahamas and have three guaranteed games each. Should the two teams square off, it’s going to be an awkward but highly motivational affair; one that Smart, his players and whoever VCU brings in as the new AD will want to put on their résumés. CT