He is a good coach but apparently the administration was not behind him. Now who do we get to replace him especially since the NCAA'S are in progress. Not a good move foe UF.
And it's wrong. Vitriol aimed at a person because even though they gave their best, they don't make my team good enough is a lousy way to live. The guy isn't a politician or doctor sucking at his job. He coaches a game....played by college kids. Voice opinions on message boards or personal conversations, but @-ing him on Twitter or going after his kids as some are reporting is disgusting. It isn't lazy. The fact that it is part of the territory is on the fans, not the coach.
Eh not really. Personally TC and MW are exchangeable in my opinion. The feather in Whites cap Is he hasn’t had a blow up season. He’s had 1 good year in his career and then just a ton of okay years
You summed it up perfectly "The fact that it IS part of the territory..." Any school on any message board or on twitter sees coaches being ridiculed, put on blast, every day. Don't have to agree with it but it is the reality. True Blue Bloods (Duke, Kent, UNC, UCLA) are not immune. Every school/fan base does this. Big, small doesn't matter. You frame Mike White as if he is some fawn in the woods and the only person on the receiving end and constantly make this a moral issue which it is not. He was paid quite well to do a job. With that comes expectations.
You're 100% right but I'm pretty sure gatorade wasn't defending vitriol aimed at coaches and children. Its a "lazy" criticism to blame UF's unhinged fans for a coach leaving, unless you think that portion of our fan base is unique. Do you think that UGA doesn't have unhinged fans? Or any major university with respect to revenue sports?
Four years under Crean... 11-21 (2-16) 16-16 (5-13) 14-12 (7-11) 6-26 (1-17) I know a lot of people on your end were frustrated with the results White got you, but it's been night and day vs what we had the past four seasons.
To clarify. I understand it comes with the territory. I am saying it shouldn't. It's...a...game. i wanted Mac and Muschamp gone, but I never tweeted them, or said mean stuff publicly, or thought their families were fair game. It's not hard to be decent. I dont think thats THE reason he left, but it is a reason coaches leave. A fresh start and a honeymoon phase is a nice relief for these guys I am sure. He was called some pretty nasty things on twitter. That stuff probably gets back to his kids. Its gross and it's the fans fault every single time in those cases.
Fair enough. Agree. I just get frustrated with the "Gator fans are awful, why would anyone come here" refrain ..... don't think that was coming from you though
Literally have no idea what you are talking about. I was responding to "Vitriol UF fan base" as the reason for MW leaving. Which is insane.
No we agree. I dont think our fanbase is alone. Its the nature of our culture today. Social media and massage boards give everyone a voice. Even those who havent earned on on certain issues. Its not a Gator problem. Its deeper than that.
I have thought for a few years the MW has looked uncomfortable/off kilter/stressed ymmv. UF for whatever reason, wasn’t the place for him. Zero animus, just wasn’t the seat on the bus for him. I wish him well, but as for wishing him success at Jawja, I am not that big of a person
I would have been OK if he came back. Im also ready to try something different and at the same time a little concerned he will get over the hump at Georgia with better injury luck. With that said, I'm not sure how many casual or even rabid fans would have picked Napier to replace Mullen. Does that mean Mullen should have been above criticism or replacement? At what point is it OK to say things aren't panning out? Do you have to be a coach to see faults in a program? It's more nuanced than "me want titles!" Tourney qualifying and representing the university well are two positives under Mike White. What about SEC play? Home record? Roster management? Offensive issues? Lack of big men? I'll continue to beat a dead horse but if anything the extremes on both sides exacerbate the intensity of the arguments. If some supporters could just acknowledge that a home blowout loss to a Texas southern team in the context of our recent down trend was a problem I doubt you get some of the vehement responses that lead a productive critical discussion into an argument.
What a bunch of malarkey. These guys are paid millions to win games. Being held to a high standard comes with the job at this level.
Great news, just stopping in as I saw something about MW leaving in a swampgas thread, figured someone was fantasizing. Maybe I'll have a reason to watch an NCAA tournament soon.
Its a game man. The stuff posted on Twitter and tagged to him is disgusting. Holding him to a standard can be done without all that garbage. And anyone paying attention knows that there was plenty of that garbage. Even after yesterdays news. That stuff gets back to his kids.
this is a great post and I agree 100%. I've laid out my criticisms of White in multiple posts on NBN with what I feel is solid, rational reasoning - things like our lack of top 25 rankings, our two preseason top 10 teams that both failed to meet expectations, our lack of SEC regular season titles or the fact that we've never even played in the SEC tournament championship (and only once even made it to Saturday) under White, our lack of an offensive identity or really a team identity throughout his entire tenure, and the mediocre records and weak NCAA seeds that we've continually seen over the last five years. there are very good and fair reasons to think White had peaked at UF and wasn't getting it done that don't involve winning the national championship or making Final Fours every year. I personally don't think there are a lot of logical reasons to point to for why he would've been able to turn that around - most of the pro-White arguments always seemed to be more about how nice of a guy he is and how clean the program was than anything to do with the team's performance trends - but I've always been willing to listen to arguments for what those reasons for hope might be, and I think most people who have fallen off the White train were respectful with their criticisms and willing to listen to discussion too. as with anything in the online sphere these days, you get a small number of extremes on both sides making the rest of us all look worse than we really are. The trick is to not to pigeonhole everyone that thinks differently than you into one of those extremes, but unfortunately arguing on the internet is so frustrating that staying fair and reasonable takes a hell of a lot of effort.
I'm sure lots of people have, I just don't really maintain a high level of interest in it when the Gators only make it 3 of the last 5 years and don't make it past the round of 32 in either attempt. He never made it past the round of 32 with his players. In fact the only time he did was 2017 with Donovan's players which I will admit was an exciting tournament. MW's teams simply did not make progress, they continued making the same mistakes from game one until the last game of the season. That's frustrating to me as a sports fan. I don't ask for perfection but seeing the same poor performances because poor play/habits aren't fixed is just not entertaining to me. The thing I liked most about BD was you could tell his teams were coached and rarely did you see a team that didn't play better and better together as the season unfolded. I didn't get that feeling since MW joined (and frankly you didn't get it BDs last season which is why I don't think anyone was surprised he left - he had obviously checked out). FWIW wikipedia agrees with me which you can see by the 'Mike White era' segment that takes up 6 lines for his 7 years of coaching. I'd call a coaching career that can be summed up in 6 lines a failure. Edit - actually 4 lines, the first two are an intro to who he is in basketball. On May 7, 2015, former Louisiana Tech head coach Mike White was hired to coach the Gators, succeeding Billy Donovan. White played point guard at Ole Miss and later served as an assistant there for seven seasons. He is a native of the state of Florida and led Louisiana Tech to three straight conference titles. In his first season at the helm, he led them to a 21–15 season and a berth in the NIT Tournament, defeating North Florida and Ohio State in the first two rounds before losing to eventual-NIT champion George Washington in the quarterfinal. In his second season the Gators went 24–7 and finished 2nd in the SEC conference standings. After getting a #4 seed in the East Regional, they beat #13 seed East Tennessee, the #5 seed Virginia Cavaliers, and the #8 seed Wisconsin Badgers—who upset the #1 seed Villanova Wildcats—on a last-second three-point buzzer beater by Chris Chiozza, advancing them to the Elite Eight, where they lost to fellow SEC member and #7 seed South Carolina Gamecocks 77–70.
