Backing Bennett has big benefits

Dick Bennett has booked his seat on the Washington State University bench for 2006, and that’s a good thing, indeed.

So how about the good deed still pending?

Why don’t the Cougars just get it over with and affirm – officially, publicly, finally – that associate head coach Tony Bennett will succeed his father, whether for the 2007 season or later?

Hey, charades can be fun. For about an hour.

And the wink-wink sort-of-an-understanding between Wazzu and the Bennetts since father and son signed on in 2003 has done neither the program nor Tony any harm. Surely it’s been helpful in recruiting; anything implying continuity is. To be the heir presumptive can’t do anything but enhance Tony Bennett’s resume.

So why is it that WSU’s head coaching situation is continually the subject of so much needless conjecture?

Well, the easy answer is Dick Bennett’s welcome straightforwardness in answering questions – any questions, really, but in this case about the stress level inherent in the task of rebuilding of Cougars basketball, and his will and stamina relative to it. Last week, he said his retirement would come “this year or next year” – which, given the human urge to jump to the most overwrought conclusion, was widely interpreted as meaning Bennett was outta here next month.

Naturally, WSU athletic director Jim Sterk and president Lane Rawlins were similarly concerned.

“Tony kind of warned me that he’s been doing this for 15 years, back and forth,” Sterk said, “but we had intended to sit down and convince him to stay – to tell him it would be great if he’d stay another year. Turns out we didn’t need to do that – his wife did it for us.”

Bennett himself recognized the problem in leaving the issue unresolved.

“In retrospect, it was one of those times where in just being honest, I did the wrong thing,” he said, knowing how such a blunt statement can be recruiting suicide. “But you know, my son is doing the recruiting and I’m sure he’s telling everybody, ‘Look, you’d rather play for me than my old man anyhow.’ Either way, it’s going to work out.”

Which is not to say he won’t admit to being spent or frustrated or ready to blow the next time he’s asked.

“I don’t want to say things that are inaccurate or exaggerated,” he said, “and I know you don’t want me to, either.”

Please, no. Bennett’s serial candor is the rare island paradise in a sea of serial, well, bull.

But if it’s all about stability – and there isn’t an A.D. in America who says otherwise – then the Cougars could do themselves a favor by simply taking the 99 percent chance that the next coach will be Tony Bennett and making it an even 100.

Even Sterk acknowledges that it’s all but a done deal.

“We really like the direction of the program,” he said, “and I know president Rawlins feels the same way – that Tony would be a great coach. There’s no secret what my intent would be. If and when the time comes, that’s the time to do it.”

If and when the time comes? Did we miss something between the lines of “another full year of work” – something like “I want to coach here until I’m 75?”

If and when have left the building.

Which brings us to the other reason it hasn’t happened.

“We haven’t asked,” said Dick Bennett. “That’s a good point – maybe I should ask.”

He wouldn’t be the first. At some point in the last 10 years an interesting phenomenon began to materialize. Successful – sometimes legendary – coaches have been able to hedge against a total makeover of the programs they’ve shaped by lobbying their administrations to name a suitable successor in advance of their retirements. Usually, of course, this has been a trusted and long-time assistant.

Now, if it seems unwise that an institution allow itself to be held hostage, if you will, by the clout of a big-name coach, consider how many fluffs have been made by search committees that simply hired the best haircut.

Jud Heathcote wrangled a guarantee out of Michigan State that his top aide, Tom Izzo, would be allowed to assume his place – a succession that’s only resulted in a national championship and two other appearances in the Final Four.

Much closer to home, Gonzaga has been through this thing twice – first when Dan Fitzgerald convinced his boss a year in advance of his retirement to anoint Dan Monson, and then when Mark Few was designated after Monson.

How’s that worked out so far?

Just last summer, both Purdue and Oklahoma State established lines of succession. Purdue – with Gene Keady’s input, but not carte blanche – hired a former Keady player, Matt Painter, from Southern Illinois to serve as an assistant for a year before taking over next season. OSU made Eddie Sutton’s son Sean head coach designate – with no stated timetable as to when that transfer will occur.

The connecting thread is that none of the designates had been a collegiate head coach previously, with the exception of Painter’s single year at SIU.

The difference is that Heathcote, Fitzgerald, Keady and Sutton were all institutions at their, uh, institutions. This is Dick Bennett’s second year at WSU. But Wazzu hired Bennett – in a bit of bold initiative by Sterk – because of 24 years he’d put in as a head coach at three other places, and his uncanny ability to turn mediocre (and worse) programs into winners.

Sterk said neither he nor Rawlins is reluctant to officially name Tony Bennett head coach designate because of the remote chance a different administration would have to live with the hire.

But until Tony is named, his father allowed that “I will always have doubt.

“Things can change. If Jim Sterk is not here or president Rawlins were to retire, or we were to go really bad, or I were to do something stupid, or the kids would come together and say ‘We don’t want (Tony),’ there is no certainty. But these men, I believe, want Tony and I believe the kids do and I certainly do. One of the reasons I came out of retirement was to help him get through these rough spots. I wouldn’t want a young guy in his first job to absorb some of the losses we have. I probably wouldn’t have stayed in coaching if that had happened to me.”

Naming a successor, he said, “probably brings a closed circle to the discussion and the issue in the players’ and recruits’ minds. That could be quite helpful.”

To the program, he means. And that’s the whole point.