https://www.midmajormadness.com/2019/3/ ... jerry-kill
Highlights:
When the school hired Hinson as Lowery’s replacement, the program was on the verge of academic probation. Its Academic Progress Rate was alarmingly low, and extraordinary measures were required to rescue the program over Hinson’s first few seasons. Eventually, Hinson and his staff steadied the ship, but his teams suffered through three losing seasons.
Goals soon shifted toward a return to the NCAA Tournament. In 2015, SIU hired Tommy Bell as its new athletic director under the theme of “restoring the glory.”
However, the state of Illinois began a two-year budget impasse the same summer, under which public universities state-wide suffered reductions in government funding. Enrollments plummeted. Between 2011 and 2018, Southern Illinois-Carbondale saw its student population fall 35 percent, putting the institution in financial peril. Dormitories closed, colleges and departments merged, and staff got laid off.
Enormous pressure fell on the school’s flagship athletic program, the men’s basketball team, to create revenue and boost exposure for the school. SIU needed to reach postseason play, something Hinson’s teams simply weren’t doing. A 22-win campaign in 2015-16 was not rewarded with an NCAA or NIT bid, and pay-for-play tournaments like the CIT and CBI were out of the question. A 17-16 season followed, leading to the 20-13 mark last year.
Looking back, the 2017-18 season served as a signpost for the current state of mid-major college basketball. The Salukis played a solid non-conference schedule, yet failed to secure any signature wins as they battled a seemingly constant stream of injuries. An 8-5 record practically eliminated them from contention for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament before Christmas. Even after finishing alone in second place of the country’s eighth-best conference by RPI, they didn’t stand a chance on Selection Sunday.
With attendance numbers stagnating around 5,000 and season ticket sales continuing to drop, the school hired Jerry Kill. The former successful SIU football coach was tasked with fundraising, and among other things, helping lift SIU from its ninth-place ranking in Missouri Valley men’s basketball budgeting.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Carlo Montemagno and Bell considered parting ways with Hinson. The issue was once again money, some $350,000 needed to buy out the final two years of his contract. The school didn’t have it, so, a source says Bell reached out privately to donors and secured a significant portion of the money.
On March 15 of last year, Hinson received word of his imminent firing. He remembers watching Kansas play its opening round game of the NCAA Tournament on television when his phone rang. It was Kill, mere weeks away from being named athletic director, calling not as a decision maker, but as a friend.
“Have you read the message boards?” Hinson recalls Kill asking.
Hinson replied he never did.
“I think they’re going to fire you tomorrow,” Kill warned. “You need to be prepared for it.”
The call stunned Hinson. He immediately texted Bell, but received no reply. He warned his staff, in case they needed to start looking for new jobs. Later that night, he even called Bill Self, whom he started his career working for as an assistant at Oral Roberts in 1993, to ask for advice.
After a sleepless night, Hinson appeared in Montemagno’s office at 9 the next morning. The chancellor put his arm around Hinson, and let him know he was not being fired. Hinson says he broke down due to relief and fatigue. Then Montemagno gave him an ultimatum: reach the NCAA Tournament or the NIT in 2018-19, or you’re out. Hinson agreed.
Two weeks later, as Hinson was watching Loyola University Chicago’s Final Four game against Michigan, his phone buzzed with bad news once again. Numerous messages poured in, some from numbers he didn’t even have in his contacts, telling him he needed to read a letter that Bell had published.
The “letter” was actually the latest edition of Bell’s newsletter, sent out online every month since he first took over as a way of engaging the portion of the fan base that had fallen away.
In the March 2018 edition, he was transparent about the struggles of the basketball program, using bold font at one point to reinforce that the “sole objective in 2019 is to win a conference championship and advance to the NCAA Tournament.”
The newsletter did not outright announce the ultimatum, but Hinson felt it legitimized the message board opposition and did irreparable damage to recruiting. He reached out to donors to see whose side they were on, and the metaphorical battle lines were drawn.
“The one thing that finally got us was the letter, and we just couldn’t overcome it,” Hinson said. “It divided our campus, it divided our alumni, it divided our booster base, and that’s the worst thing you could ever want as a head coach.”
On April 26, Southern Illinois announced it would not be renewing Bell’s contract, and effective immediately, Kill would take over as acting athletic director. Bell neither confirmed nor denied any connection between the Hinson situation and his employment status.
Whether or not Hinson paid attention to the vitriol online, he couldn’t help but notice the signs and hear the jeers this season. “Fire Hinson” could be seen and heard at nearly every game inside SIU Arena. With six seniors and the top four returning scorers from the previous season on the roster, fans expected nothing less than a return to 2007 form.
Hinson calmly shook hands with UNI coach Ben Jacobson before crossing the court to handle a radio interview. Walking off, he was ambushed by a chorus of boos and screams of “you suck!” from a large contingent of SIU fans in the stands. Hinson paused and glared back at them for a moment, then dropped his head and trudged toward the tunnel. There he found Kill, who he told to join the team in the locker room.
Standing in front of the team, Hinson thanked the players for their effort during the season and let them know he’d be resigning at the postgame press conference.
“I want every one of you to graduate, you underclassmen I don’t want to hear about anybody leaving or transferring, I want everybody to come back,” Hinson remembers saying, adding, “I wanted [Kill] to hear that because I don’t want anybody misquoting me.”
Hinson exited the locker room with Kill and a conference representative, moving down a hallway toward the interview room when they received one final heckle.
“There goes the firing squad,” Hinson recalls hearing from a bystander. Kill admits the comment got him “fired up,” and instructed security to remove the man.
“I thought he was going to fight the guy,” Hinson said.
