FORT WORTH, Texas — In his tenure as the athletic director at Baylor, Ian McCaw said he never once fielded a phone call or email about poaching his men’s basketball coach, but instead the correspondence was of a darker nature.
“Now, what I did get was emails from fans who said, ‘He’s a great guy but he can’t coach,’” said McCaw on Monday morning in a phone interview. McCaw is now the AD at Liberty University.
“They all said, ‘Oh, he can recruit great players, but he’s not a good enough X’s and O’s coach,’” McCaw revealed. “That was the criticism I’d always hear. The fact is he was a better X’s and O’s coach than people ever gave him credit for. He always continued to grow from a coaching standpoint.”
Even as Scott Drew’s resume grew, and he stacked accomplishments and NCAA tourney appearances, McCaw said the coach never once looked elsewhere.
Drew’s Baylor Bears (28-2) totally dominated the previously undefeated Gonzaga Bulldogs (31-1) in the NCAA men’s basketball title game, winning 86-70 on Monday night in Indianapolis. He may be the last coach in a Power 5 conference who was given time to grow into his job.
No one gets the amount of time to mature, and lose, the way Drew did since he landed in Waco. No one has the time, or patience, for maturation.
Drew and Kansas’ Bill Self are the longest tenured coaches in the Big 12.
Drew’s first four years in Waco were all losing seasons, as he was burdened with both NCAA sanctions and Baylor-imposed penalties on the program stemming from the Dave Bliss era.
How many coaches today would be allowed to post four-straight losing records to start their career at a P5 program and still have a job, regardless of circumstances?
McCaw would like to take credit for hiring Drew, but he is the first person to admit it wasn’t entirely his call.
Back in 2003, Baylor had fired Bliss as well as the school’s athletic director, Tom Stanton.
To find replacements, then Baylor president Robert Sloan conducted searches for a basketball coach and new AD simultaneously.
When Sloan was narrowing the respective fields for both jobs, he asked McCaw what he thought about Drew as a potential head coach.
“I didn’t know him personally, but I knew he was young and energetic and he wanted to be at a faith-based school,” McCaw said.
Baylor hired Drew in August of 2003. A few weeks later, McCaw was named its AD.
“I’ll never forget the first meeting I had with him,” McCaw said. “He says to me, ‘Are you ready to go to the Final Four?’
“Because of the NCAA penalties, we had something like five or six scholarship players left,” he said. “The entire team had been given an early release from [their scholarships], and most of them went to what they felt like were better places in their minds.
“So we have five or six guys, and we’re left with intramural players. There was this attitude and the energy he brought to that program. You could see he had the vision, and the passion and the commitment,” McCaw said. “In my 13 years there, he never once looked at another job. He really felt like he could build something special there. It’s incredible. It’s one of the greatest turnarounds in the history of college basketball.”
Baylor’s staff no longer receives emails from fans suggesting that Drew is an ish coach who lacks X’s and O’s skills.
McCaw resigned as AD from Baylor in May of 2016, when the school was under intense pressure in the wake of sexual assault allegations against members of the football team.
In March of this year, Baylor won its first conference title in men’s basketball since 1950.
A few days later, McCaw received a note in the mail. It was from Drew. In the envelope was a picture of the team celebrating the title, and a clipping of the net cut down.
Drew wrote, “Sorry it took so long to get this. You’re a big part of it.”
In the end, Scott Drew was right.
And in the coming days, McCaw might be on the lookout for yet another envelope.
