The Tim Welsh That I Know
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
I like Tim Welsh. I am saddened by what has happened to him this past week. We all know by now that he was arrested and charged with DWI last Friday morning on Long Island and resigned his post as Hofstra’s new men’s basketball coach three days later.
I am not excusing his indiscretion in any way. It was dangerous. He is fortunate that he did not do harm to himself and, more importantly someone else. Now, he suffers the consequences of those actions.
But this unfortunate incident not withstanding, Tim Welsh is a good man. For those who would challenge that statement my response would be that sometimes good people do bad things.
Is this one moment of poor judgement supposed to define the man? The Tim Welsh I got to know over the past 12 years was a good man. He was someone who cared about other people and handled everything that he did with class.
I understood why Bob Driscoll and Providence College felt that it was time for a change when they let him go two years ago. Even though he had delivered the Friars to two NCAA Tournaments in his 10 years as head coach, he could not win a tournament game. His teams also never did anything of substance in the NIT and also struggled to win at the Big East Tournament each year. Fans were starting to become unhappy with the results so the school made a change.
In retrospect, 2 NCAA Tournament appearances in 10 years wasn’t horrible at PC when you consider how difficult it is to win there given the competition in the Big East. I personally believe that he would have probably taken a third team to the tournament if the school allowed him to have junior college transfer Quenton Holsley who was ready to come here.
But Welsh accepted his fate like a man and did not complain publicly or privately about his dismissal. That’s because he is not one to complain.
After spending two years as a college basketball analyst for ESPN and SNY and as a Celtics studio analyst for Comcast-New England, Tim felt that the time was right to get back into coaching. Hosfstra seemed like a perfect fit as he could go back to New York where he was so well liked from his days at Iona. But only a month after accepting the job, this happened and Welsh had to resign.
I am sure that this will hurt him if and when he wants to return to coaching once again. Instead of landing a $600,000/year job as head coach at Hofstra, he will have to settle for something much less than that at a low major program or even become an assistant coach somewhere first.
Even returning to television at the level where he was only a month ago may be difficult. Not because he didn’t do a very good job on TV, but because this incident may cause some stations to pass on the former Friars coach. I certainly hope that is not the case.
I like Tim Welsh. He is a good person who screwed up. He deserves a second chance. The Tim Welsh that I got to know earned it.
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