Tom Walter
- Thread starter manonwheels36
- Start date
I have no idea who he is, but I would be willing to take him tomorrow as our new coach.
I know you're never shy with an opinion, but what do you know about this guy that makes him a hard pass? He has a school with no baseball tradition among the 2 or 3 best in the country right now...
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Would be disappointing. If we're gonna let Lem go and we're seroius about baseball spend the effing money and get a HR hire. Quit with the up and comers. I want a proven H/C that's won big. I'm talking a make a statement type hire.
Walter has been a HC in the 2nd best baseball conference for 14 years. He’s about as far from an up-and-comer as one could be.
At an absolutely awful program with extreme recruiting limitations in every sport. Probably the 5th best baseball program just in the state of NC in terms of resources.
Meh. It’s not that complex in college baseball. Louisville, Virginia, Tennessee, Vandy…all bad programs before a good coach took over. Kentucky before Cohen.
And Muscara will be a HC very soon so it’s not a package deal.
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He did little before making a good hire. He's going to lose that guy after this season.
Cliff Godwin, Chris Pollard and Justin Haire are all better options than Walter just in North Carolina alone.
Not a good time to hire a baseball coach, not a lot of quality candidates out there like in years past. i.e. Schlossnagle, Bakich. Gonna be hard to pull Corbin or Butch. Don't see ya'll even considering Burroughs, Mingione or Berry. Godwin is an Ole Miss/LSU guy I think ya'll's new AD will do a true national search if ya'll fire Lemonis.
Its a really good time to hire. 3 really nice options. Godwin, Haire and Nate Thompson. Id look at Tulo and Bloomquist too. But more importantly we will likely be the best job available. Next year could see TX and OM open Up. We are never hiring Corbin, Sully, etc.
What is “ya’ll”? “Ya will” contraction?
Totally disagree. All those programs except Vandy are massive schools with enrollments in the 25,000 - 30,000 range, have hundreds of thousands of living alumni (meaning lots of wealthy boosters), and plenty of football / basketball revenue to create cash flow for baseball. With Vandy, we all know the story there.
Wake Forest is a smaller version of Vanderbilt, except without anywhere close to the same prestigious academic reputation as Vandy or nearby Duke, and no special endowment to pay baseball players. It’s easily the worst Power 5 university across the board in terms of overall athletic support. Just 5,500 undergrad students, a proportional number of living alumni, and hardly any wealthy boosters that give a damn about collegiate athletics.
They would still have a runway to some success if they didn’t have to compete against the 20-25 best college baseball programs in America (all nearby) for recruits, and have to play 30 games a year against teams with 4x their level of financial resources for athletics. Put them in the Sun Belt and they could easily be another USM / Coastal Carolina, etc. But that ain’t the case. Duke is in a similar situation, but they can at least sell the academic side and have a national brand in basketball that brings in a ton of money.
As for Walter, he wouldn’t be my first choice, but I’d be more than fine with it if he was the chosen candidate from an open and thorough national search. He’s a very good coach. Biggest strike against him is his age. He’s mid-50’s so not all that young, and he’s never really been in a position where he had to be able to recruit elite talent just to be .500 in his league like he would here. But honestly, he probably ain’t coming. 14 years at Wake….he’s got some deep roots down.
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You think we didn’t make a home run hire last time bc of money?
You think anyone home run hire we offer money to won’t get offered more by the school he’s currently coaching?
So money is equal.
All we have is tradition and facilities and a disadvantage with scholarships and NIL.
As of 2022:
Corbin 1.66 MM
Vitello 1.50 MM
Schloss 1.40 MM
Van Horn 1.30 MM
Lemonis 1.25 MM
Jay Johson 1.2 MM
O'Sullivan 1.2 MM
Bianco 1.2 MM
Thompson 1.0 MM
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I can't pretend I know much about Wake Forest's alumni support of sports, but saying their academic reputation isn't anywhere close to Duke and Vandy is a bit of a stretch.
Yes, Duke and Vandy are more prestigious than Wake, but Wake is an extremely well thought of school academically. Tuition is $60k+ a year and acceptance rate is about 25% of applicants. Ranked among the Top 30 national universities by US News.
FWIW.
It’s certainly a good academic school. But not an elite one. Duke’s acceptance rate is 5.9%. Vandy is 7.1%. And also ahead of WF on that same US News list you mentioned - UNC, Florida, and UVa. All those aren’t that far away. Their academics simply aren’t good enough to give them special appeal to baseball recruits who can choose other schools that also have better facilities, resources, and tradition….in my opinion. And its made 10x worse with tuition being $62K and no “Opportunity Wake” program to act as a safety net.
I understand you can’t comprehend but let’s do it like this.
if we offer Corbin $2m, Vandys gonna offer $2.1. Same with ever other coach you listed.
they can match or beat our offer.
SO MONEY IS EQUAL AT BEST BC THEY HAVE MORE MONEY.
So that leaves our tradition and facilities against scholarships and NIL.
Give me a compelling argument why any of them would leave?
If being able to afford a quarter million dollars for an education doesn't make you elite then what's the point??
If you ran into Wake Forest fans at the Music City Bowl years back it felt very much like Vandy, except they were much nicer and classier in my experience.
And I didn't try to indicate that they were in the class of Duke or Vandy.
Btw, I got accepted to Vandy and that should be a huge strike against them, obviously.
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