http://www.toledoblade.com/DaveHackenberg/2013/04/01/Vict...

http://www.toledoblade.com/sports/2013/04/01/Rockets-coac...

A couple of great articles on the former Toledo coach who may have been the greatest the MAC ever had in basketball.

OCF, let's face it both Snyder and Nichols were GREAT MAC coaches.  And look at the players and success those guys had.  Seems like they just don't make coaches like that anymore.  Went to the school and played, grew up and stayed for a lifetime.  Definitely a different era then for the coaches and players.

I think the difference was the men and their values.  Loyalty, honesty and integrity seemed to be much more valued in that bygone era.  And, it wasn't just our coaches.  This was true at a lot of places.  Do a google search on the name George Ireland and you'll discover a man who was not only loyal (he had many offers for higher paid jobs, especially after his team won the national championship), but was a real innovator of the game and, more importantly, was a man of great integrity.  I remember hearing Jim Snyder say that after his national championship win -- right after the game in the arena -- his major concern when Snyder congratulated him on the win was to ask if all the details were in place for the 1-1 with Ohio the next two years.  Snyder said he was blown away that Ireland was concerned about that right after his national championship victory.  Today, most coaches of a low-revenue team like Loyola would have been more concerned with interviewing for that more lucrative job rather than worrying about next season's schedule for their current school.  Also, please note what you'll find out about Ireland and his commitment to racial integration. 

So am I.

Well, money is a relative thing.  I'm sure George Ireland could have upped his Loyola salary by five times or more if he'd gone to a Big 10, or SEC team, which he no doubt could have after winning the national championship.  But, he stayed at Loyola.   I don't know specifically about offers that Snyder may have received, but I assume there were some.  I do know that Bill Hess was offered the Pittsburgh job and turned it down.  This was widely reported in the media at the time, so it wasn't a secret.  There were a few days when people thought he was going to Pitt, but then UPI broke the story that Hess had decided to stay in Athens.  I remember how nervous I was until I heard the report on the radio.  I don't know what Pitt was offering Hess, but you can bet it was a great deal more than he was making at OHIO.  One of the few people on today's scene that I see that seems to be cut from the same clothe is Shaka Smart at VCU.  He's turned down several offers over the last few years that would have given him a lot more bucks and a higher professional profile.  I'm sure there are some others, but he's the one that comes most easily to mind.  Hey, you know, the infamous TOS might be one of those guys.  I suspect that he'll probably stay at Bryant regardless of the offers that might come his way.  Though, as i said in another thread, the Rutgers job seems a good match.

I cut my MAC teeth watching Bobby Nichols' excellent Toledo teams.  I always respected how good they were and the way they played.  Coach Nichols was and is an iconic figure in the history of the MAC. 

As his career wound down, his teams became basically all white.  There was a lot of murmuring about how that could happen and why.

Comparing the coaches of that era to today's coaches is an apples and oranges thing.  The influx of money and media has changed everything.  I don't necessarily think that coaches today are of lesser integrity...they are in a different environment with a lot more money at stake.  Remember, OCF, that ADs were a LOT less likely to fire coaches back in that day...so guys could afford to be more loyal to a single institution.  So I think a lot of coaches today look out for themselves because they realize that ravenous ADs and fan bases are ready to fire them at the drop of a hat.  That's the part of the equation you haven't addressed.  Having said that, I agree that college athletics was better in many ways back then...and it was great to see more stability.  

So were racism, sexism, and homophobia... among other things. 

I always cringe when I see people talk about the "good old days." Selective memory always makes the past look better than the present.

So you're going to impugn an entire generation of people based on comparing yesterday's standards with today's standards? By that measure, no historical figure has any nobility. They were all flawed because they didn't meet today's measure of acceptability.