STARKVILLE — In John Cohen’s days as Mississippi State’s baseball coach, he used to enjoy running in the concourses of Humphrey Coliseum, sometimes getting a view of the women’s basketball practices run by Vic Schaefer. He would go out of his way to call then athletic director Scott Stricklin to rave about the defensive intensity, assuring him Schaefer would succeed at MSU.
Now, as the athletic director himself, Cohen gets even more joy watching Schaefer’s program, all while maintaining confidence in Ben Howland to take the men’s team to the same heights. In Cohen’s exclusive interview with The Dispatch, he described what it’s like to be the athletic director for both programs.
For the women’s team, the job isn’t an aggressive one. Athletic directors often find themselves chasing a new facility, an improvement or something to help their current coach reach the next level. The women’s basketball program doesn’t need that, as only tournament luck separates it from a national championship.
So what is it like to be the athletic director for that kind of program?
“It’s kind of like the difference between being a parent and being an uncle,” Cohen said. “Your uncle is the greatest guy in the world: he’s this good guy, he hears you out, he’s positive, he loves you, but that parent is always on you about schoolwork and getting the yard done, cleaning out the gutters and accountability.”
In this situation, Cohen is the uncle and Schaefer the parent. Schaefer is tasked with the accountability piece, constantly driving his players to be better and reach the heights they have; Cohen gets to enjoy it from the sidelines, taking in the fruits of the labor he doesn’t have to organize.
“I love sitting on the front row, I love cheering the kids on,” he said.
If the contract holds, Cohen will do just that for at least four more years.
MSU announced Monday that it and Schaefer have agreed to a contract extension, keeping Schaefer as the program’s head coach through the 2020-21 season and offering a $375,000 retention bonus if he is still the team’s coach on June 1, 2021. Over those four years his yearly salary increases from $1,584,000 to $1,650,000.
“Vic Schaefer has elevated women’s basketball to an elite status at Mississippi State,” Cohen said. “We wanted to give Coach Schaefer a contract that represented that elite status.
“They’re working tirelessly to maintain that level of excellence.”
Cohen believes similar days are on the way for the men’s basketball program.
“Ben is the kind of person who would never blame anything on bad luck or injuries or anything like that but he’s had some pretty bad luck, and it’s time for him to have some good luck,” Cohen said. “Anything from crazy things happening in the last seconds of a basketball game to injuries, I think if he could just have a year where he doesn’t have really unfortunate things happen, I think the sky’s the limit.”
This could be the year for those fortunes to reverse. At the very least, they have the roster to capitalize on it if luck does go their way.
The same team that won seven of its last 11 games and made a run to the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) returns almost all of the players that got it there. The Bulldogs return their top six scorers — the only ones on the team to average more than seven points per game — and its top four rebounders.
On top of it all, MSU adds four players in a recruiting class ranked 16th in the nation and fourth in the Southeastern Conference by 247 Sports. The class includes Columbus native Robert Woodard.
“I know our players believe in him, I know his development of players is really good,” Cohen said.
Eventually, that program will have to tackle the next step in its climb. It is currently searching for its first NCAA tournament bid under Howland’s leadership, and in theory the program will then look to go from tournament participant to consistent Sweet 16 threat.
As that era dawns, potentially as soon as the end of this coming season, Cohen knows he has the right man to do it.
“I have a lot of faith in Ben Howland because he’s done that before, he’s been through that process before,” Cohen said, referencing Howland’s two trips to the Final Four at UCLA. “The way he’s developed his players is remarkable.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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