Under a Raimbault

BU has, as the Brandon Sun reported last week, officially hired Mike Raimbault as the new head coach of the program. Here is a column that appeared in the Sun on Tuesday:

Mike Raimbault has landed his dream job and it’s a dream he could be awaken from quite abruptly.

As previously reported in the Brandon Sun, the Brandonite was officially named the head men’s basketball coach of his home university on Monday — a team for which he once briefly suited up — and he will take over a program that once again is in the nation’s elite.

However, the job is a nine-month term that will conclude with Raimbault likely in an area of more uncertainty than where he was before his recent good fortune.

The reality is that when the 2008-09 season rolls around, Mike Raimbault may very well not be in his dream job anymore. The job will be posted again making what he does this season — and this season alone — critical to his future as a CIS coach.

It is a pivotal time for this Bobcats team. Two fifth-year starters return from a squad that made the national championship final in March and the team has lost just two players from that group.

While it is undoubtedly a pretty plum gig to have handed to you as your first CIS job — hey kid, there’s gas in the car and a straight road ahead, just try not to crash it — it is also one that does not come without its inherent pressures, more so than most any other program in Canada.

The scrutiny that comes down on you in Brandon is greater than it is in Windsor; the expectations to lead the Bobcats to the promised land is always higher than it is at Memorial and the backlash you can receive from any number of sources around the community is infinitely more than, say, Winnipeg or Saskatchewan.

Raimbault’s first order of business, then, should be to develop a thick skin.

Raimbault, like it or not, has inherited an expectation to win and win now. That pressure comes from getting the primo talent handed to you and a lot of people would suggest not at least making a run at another national would be considered a failure.

(Now, before anyone goes barking about “academics count, too”, be reminded that sports reporters aren’t assigned to cover a point guard’s Practicum in Geography class or a swingman’s Intro to Psychology. So, in this case, when it comes to academics and sports reporting, never the twain shall meet.)

It would not be far off to suggest that there would be considerable disappointment if this team — which will possess arguably the most lethal starting five in the conference — doesn’t book tickets for nationals in Ottawa next March.

Raimbault might be afforded some slack because of the short notice on which he was given the reins and because he’s a likable guy, well-respected throughout the community.

Raimbault’s hire certainly raised the eyebrows of many basketball people around the country if only because his youth and inexperience made him an easy target for naysayers who believe BU copped out by doing the easy thing by hiring Craddock’s assistant.

There are people angry over whom they didn’t hire. Still, with Craddock’s late and sudden departure is it not better to maintain some level of continuity at a school that has struggled so mightily to find that elusive trait?

Raimbault’s inexperience coaching at an elite level is most certainly a red flag but so too was Craddock’s and that turned out not too badly. In the end, the only people you need to care about are the ones you’re stepping out with every single day. So is it not better to appease the 12 players whom you’re entrusted to lead through the season and say to hell with all the outsiders who are all too willing to contradict?

I suggest so.

But that doesn’t take away the reality of the situation: Dreams can take sharp turns and right around the corner from golden opportunity could loom the dark alley of disappointment.

For the time being, it’s probably best that nobody pinches him.