Tony Bennett Retiring

[simply1]

I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit the broadcast booth.

I agree, seems like he was on after they were eliminated.

 

[NoCreativity]

Coach K, Roy Williams, Boheim, Jay Wright, and now Bennett have all retired since this NIL crap became prevalent. I doubt it was a coincidence.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I like my job but if I had an 8 digit bank account I wouldn't be working very long either.

 

[IASTATE07]

Coach K, Roy Williams, Boheim, Jay Wright, and now Bennett have all retired since this NIL crap became prevalent. I doubt it was a coincidence.

I'm not sure I'm blaming NIL for guys in their 70s retiring. Boeheim was forced out.

 

[drmwevr08]

He owes the school nothing but what this timing does is ensures his assistants get their shot this year. I'm good with that, although he may not have even though that hard about it.

 

[NoCreativity]

I'm not sure I'm blaming NIL for guys in their 70s retiring. Boeheim was forced out.

Jay Wright and Bennett aren't in their 70s. These coaches hate NIL.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Jay Wright and Bennett aren't in their 70s. These coaches hate NIL.

Wright is 62 and Bennett is 55, the world they knew changed and they could afford to walk away so they did. Without NIL and unlimited transfers both could have coached into their 70's.

 

[IASTATE07]

Jay Wright and Bennett aren't in their 70s. These coaches hate NIL.

I was clearly talking about Coach K, Williams, and Boeheim since you lumped all 5 together.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

Wright is 62 and Bennett is 55, the world they knew changed and they could afford to walk away so they did. Without NIL and unlimited transfers both could have coached into their 70's.

Wright for sure but I don’t think so with Bennett. His style is not one that most talented players want to play.

 

[Cyforce]

In this NIL era, he owes it to his players, collective donors, and his AD to either be all in or all out 5 months ago.

*this is ****** take if this is because of personal reasons, mental health reasons, or physical health reasons.

The thought that coaches owed less to their players pre NIL really pisses me off

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Wright for sure but I don’t think so with Bennett. His style is not one that most talented players want to play.

The guy won a national championship, and has already gone on record as saying the reasons he left was because of the change in sport, NIL and unlimited transfers.

UVA's Bennett cites state of game for retirement

Tony Bennett cited the current environment in college basketball as a reason for his abrupt retirement as Virginia coach.

www.espn.com

 

[madguy30]

Coach K, Roy Williams, Boheim, Jay Wright, and now Bennett have all retired since this NIL crap became prevalent. I doubt it was a coincidence.

I'll give you Jay Wright but Coach K and Boheim are in their late 70s, Williams 74 and Coach K was limping around his last season.

Perhaps NIL was the final push to officially make the decision but just a general search shows coaches typically get out in about their 60s.

 

[madguy30]

Jay Wright and Bennett aren't in their 70s. These coaches hate NIL.

So why did you put them in with guys in their late 70s that were probably clinging on too long to start?

 

[RedlineSi]

Don’t blame him. Plus these guys can make a killing in the booth.

I’m surprised Saban is so good on Game Day.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Don’t blame him. Plus these guys can make a killing in the booth.

I’m surprised Saban is so good on Game Day.

Saban is excellent on the pre game. I am sure it scratches his football itch and allows him to stay close to the sport and not put in all the time in coaching. Saban is 72 years old, nice to see him go out on top, instead of hanging on like many coaches do

 

[mynameisjonas]

Let’s spice up the thread.

I appreciate the people that believe everything that’s in the media, but I’m still not buying it. There’s no way that he just got tired of coaching a week or two before the season starts and retires like that and bails on his guys unless it’s something big. All he had to do was coach through March and make another 6 mill or whatever his salary is and then retire.

 

[NoCreativity]

So why did you put them in with guys in their late 70s that were probably clinging on too long to start?

Because they are all legendary coaches who have won a national championship and then all decided to hang it up coincidentally when NIL came around.

My post has nothing to do with their ages.

Didn't Coach K make the Final 4 his last year? They could have coached longer but like you said, NIL was probably their final straw.

 

[shadow]

Here is a TL;DR from Matt Norlander's article on CBS Sports.

Virginia's Tony Bennett digs deeper after retirement news conference: 'I felt I was the one holding them back'

Bennett's retirement ceremony on Friday provided a surreal transitional moment for Virginia — and possibly college basketball

www.cbssports.com

After his news conference, he took even more questions in a one-on-one interview with CBS Sports, getting into the specifics of his exit.
...
He gave retirement serious thought in the days following Virginia's 67-42 loss to Colorado State in the First Four — I can now share that Bennett talked about this with me off the record in April — but before he could really allow himself to push through on that, recruiting in the portal pulled him into the next phase of the job, and then the next. He didn't want to be pulled any more.

This week, he broke free.

Bennett could have had another decade of good-to-great coaching in him if he felt it. But that feeling sapped from him in recent months, and in just the past week, the epiphany hit. With three days to get away, Tony and his wife, Laurel, headed out of town to Tides Inn, on the Rappahannock River. Over the course of 48 hours, he faced his truth. He said it hit him in a way that was inescapable.

"We lost a lot of players that I think we wouldn't have lost [before NIL regulations]," Bennett said. "And that's OK because it's a new model. And so you've got to decide, where's the line, how far can we go? … It's confusing. I'll be honest, it's confusing.

"I realized if we can't have the right players to compete, the gap could grow," Bennett added. "I felt I was the one holding them back."
...
"Now that I'm not in it, I can say this. It's too much," Bennett told me. "You go from the moment the season ends, you're trying to fill your roster and you're in there and you gotta go, go, go. You gotta be on campus. And the season's long enough, whether you are in the tournament, the moment it ends you're right away trying to rebuild your roster, and you're in there, and it was two months of insane work. You're just going, going, going."
...
I asked Bennett about why retiring now was appropriate. The offseason is over. The time coaches cherish the most — the actual games — is upon us. He could have privately decided to retire come March 2025 and kept to himself.

"It wasn't like I got this set and I planned this date," Bennett said. "If you're battling things and you're not all in and have the passion to give. You have to know who you are, and you have to be all in with everything. If you know you're fighting yourself in this — because you're still recruiting, you're still involved with stuff — you're gonna have to keep building, and you're always worrying about what's next. And I felt, even in the fall, I felt things I haven't felt for a long time, or maybe I've been battling and coaching some of my perspective. Sometimes, you know, my anger — and people say, 'Oh, you don't get angry' — but I felt myself becoming a little more transactional in mindset. At times. And then I'd catch myself, but I felt that battle being waged inside, and I never want to be like that. That's why I'm not equipped for this."
...
He's going to lobby for a true shutdown period in the offseason — if not two — where coaches are mandated to not have any contact with recruits, to enable more balance. Without it, he knows more accelerated retirements are guaranteed in the next few years. He wants to be an agent for positive developments in college athletics. Taking into account the money that's now flowing across high-profile college sports, Bennett sees a major mental health crisis coming for college athletes if more protections aren't put around them ASAP.

For as much as he has concern there, he also wants to give himself to his family more than he ever has — wife, children and parents. **** and Anne Bennett are 81 years old. He's only gotten to see them once or twice a year in recent years. I remember Bennett calling me on an August morning in 2023 for our Candid Coaches series as he sipped coffee outside next to his mother. He was as chatty then as I've ever heard him.

"I don't want to live with regrets," he said Friday.

 

[rosshm16]

Not sure if Bennett falls in this category, I don't know/care about UVA basketball, but color me unsympathetic for all these old-guard coaches who miss the good old days when only the top 10-15 teams could pay players and consistently get away with it.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Not sure if Bennett falls in this category, I don't know/care about UVA basketball, but color me unsympathetic for all these old-guard coaches who miss the good old days when only the top 10-15 teams could pay players and consistently get away with it.

Guy was burnt out and was smart enough to realize it and walk away. If your heart is not 100% in doing a task, its going to be difficult to do and coaching is now a year around job, with little time to get away from that pressure, if you want to do it right.