Brad Holland expresses interest
Eastern Washington may have an opportunity to escape the cloud of bad publicity generated by the firing of its men’s basketball coach two months after the season ended.
Brad Holland, fired after 13 years at San Diego, said he would be interested in the EWU job that opened when Mike Burns was fired Wednesday.
“I’m a college basketball coach,” Holland said when reached Friday evening. “I’ve been in the business 20 years and I want to continue being a college basketball coach.
“Our twin daughters just graduated from USD and our son will be a freshman in high school next year. We’re open to relocating and finding another situation where I can be a successful coach and provide another high quality program for another community.”
The Toreros were 18-14 in Holland’s last year and 200-176 for his career. Prior to that, the former All-American at UCLA and NBA player spent two years at Cal State Fullerton, where he had a 23-31 record.
Holland, who was replaced by Gonzaga assistant Billy Grier, said he had not yet spoken to EWU interim athletic director Michael Westfall.
“There has been great interest,” Westfall said. “I haven’t even looked at resumes yet, I’ve just been fielding calls.”
He said he would spend the week going through resumes and hoped to have candidates on campus by the end of next week.
Holland said he had more ties to the area than the annual West Coast Conference game with Gonzaga and the Toreros’ 97-78 win at Eastern on Jan. 1, 2006.
“I’ve been on the West Coast my whole life,” he said. “I was born in Billings, Mont.
“Recruiting-wise, I’m familiar with the Northwest and I’m familiar with the Big Sky Conference. We played against all the teams in the Big Sky.”
Holland was a two-time WCC Coach of the Year known for his discipline, organization and graduation rates.
San Diego won the WCC tournament in 2003 but lost a first-round NCAA tournament game to Stanford in Spokane.
A WCC assistant with ties to Eastern would seem to be another possibility.
“I have not been contacted by anyone in the athletic department,” Loyola Marymount assistant Brian Priebe said. “I assume they’ll have a list of people they’re interested in and they’ll go after those people. That would be my guess.”
Priebe spent five years at Eastern on Steve Aggers’ staff and went with Aggers, who has also expressed an interest in the EWU job, to LMU. Aggers coached at LMU through 2005 and in the CBA last season.
“I had a great experience. I enjoyed the people and the place,” Priebe said. “I have a lot of fond memories.”
University of Washington assistant Jim Shaw said he would consider the job.
“I’m in a position where I would listen to people if they want to talk, but also in a position I have a really good job and I’m happy,” he said.
“Right now, I have not had any contact with anyone from there so I would guess my best response is I don’t know much about the situation. From outside looking in it looks like a good situation.”
Another Huskies assistant, Cameron Dollar, said he had a policy of not talking about other jobs.
A dark horse candidate for the job could be North Carolina-Wilmington assistant Kirk Earlywine.
Earlywine has more than 20 years experience as an assistant at the Division I level, including one year, 1994-95, at Central Michigan when Westfall was there.
At Central Michigan, Westfall was an administrative assistant for two years and a graduate assistant for a third until he got out of coaching.