Tuesday should have been all about Jory Collins.
Collins was named women’s basketball head coach at his alma mater, yet almost every question Collins was asked at his introductory press conference centered around his predecessor, Brandon Schneider, the man most responsible for building a consistent winner and giving Emporia State its first Division II National championship.
How will you be different than Schneider? What did you learn from Schneider? How in the world are you going to follow Schneider?
Schneider! Schneider! Schneider!
Any other coach might have developed a Marcia Brady complex on his first day on the job. Collins handled every question with respect and patience.
“I look up to Brandon,” he said. “I hold him in the highest respect as a person, peer and friend. He’s had a tremendous influence on my approach to work and life and just the pursuit of excellence overall.”
No one knows whether Jory Collins can continue the excellence. No one knows whether Collins is going to be a great basketball coach, but the way he handled himself on Tuesday proved that he was the right and only choice to replace Schneider.
It’s a daunting task, one on which only Collins is prepared to embark. He has paid his dues. He’s spent nine of the last 10 years as an ESU assistant in some capacity. He started at the bottom, doing the team’s laundry as a student assistant. He worked his way up to Schneider’s top assistant.
No one knows the Schneider way better. No one knows the expectations and the passion for Lady Hornet basketball better than Collins. Any other coach would have gotten lost in Schneider’s shadow, which Collins knows will not go away until...
“Probably another National championship,” Collins said.
Schneider was in a similar situation when he took over the program 12 years ago. He had been Cindy Stein’s assistant for three seasons, and the team made it to the National championship game in Stein’s final season.
It took Schneider 12 years to get back, but by winning conference championships and winning 81 percent of his games, Emporia accepted him as the face of the Lady Hornets.
Schneider also had the fortune of following a coach who was only in Emporia for three seasons. Schneider was also more prepared to be a head coach. His dad was a successful coach. He grew up knowing he wanted to be a coach and knowing he would one day be a head coach.
Collins had dreams of one day becoming a head coach, but it might not have been expected — as it was with Schneider — when Collins walked into Schneider’s office 10 years ago and told him he wanted to be a coach.
Schneider is very demanding and cannot be an easy person to work under. Collins’ work ethic and basketball knowledge gained Schneider’s respect and made him believe Collins should be his replacement. It also made him want Collins to follow him to Stephen F. Austin.
“It’s hard for me to say no to anything to him,” Collins said, “but this was a decision for me and my family, and this is a place that my wife and I love and both have our degrees from here. So for us, it’s a perfect fit.”
Whether Collins is the perfect fit for Emporia will be measured by wins and championships. I’m not sure whether he can continue that, because he never has been a head coach. He never has had to figure out a way to get his team out of a funk. Never has had to decide how to deal with a disgruntled parent. Never has had to deal with any sort of adversity.
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