ECU basketball undergoes coaching shakeup

By Ronnie Woodward East Carolinian

August 22, 2007

Greenville, NC (CSTV U-WIRE) -- After two disappointing seasons as ECU head basketball coach, Ricky Stokes has decided to step down, or at least, step aside.

Associate head coach Mack McCarthy will take over as acting head coach for the upcoming season and Stokes has taken an administrative role as the associate athletics director for basketball.

Stokes won 14 games, five of which came against non-Division I opponents and lost 44 in his two seasons at ECU.

"At this time, being the associate AD makes the most sense to me," Stokes said in an Aug. 9 phone teleconference. "It's best for the ECU basketball program for me to go into athletic administration rather than having the scrutiny and referendum after each game."

ECU athletic director Terry Holland said that he, Stokes and the other coaches had many meetings throughout the summer and collectively decided that this was the best move for the basketball program.

"I don't think there's any doubt that the reason we're here is because the last two years, we've been 14-44 on the court," said Holland at the press conference. "After this [past] season, I sat down with the coaching staff and we had some good heart-to-heart talks and the main theme of that is we've got really one year to get this right so let's put everything on the table and continue to talk and continue to meet until we can determine what the best thing to do to move this program forward will be for the coming season."

Holland added, "Toward the end of the summer, we came up with what we thought was the best solution, and simply put, coach Stokes felt it was a good time for him to make a career change at age 45 and he wanted to focus on the bigger issue."

The timing of the coaching switch comes just weeks before the team starts practice.

"It's odd timing but it's just one of those things where a coach has to do what's best for his family...and I think that's what happened with coach Stokes," said senior forward Taylor Gagnon.

Holland and Stokes both said that a new practice facility is needed and part of Stokes' new position is to help fundraise and develop the project.

"There is no bigger issue and no more long-term issue than a practice facility and the ability for our teams to have the access to the practice facility that they need," said Holland. "That's not going to happen overnight, it's not going to happen in the next year and probably not in the next two or three years, but it will never happen unless we start pushing for that...Ricky's job will be to promote all of those programs and help us do whatever it takes to get the job done in the long term, coach McCarthy's job is to win games." Winning games is something McCarthy is no stranger to. McCarthy has a 309-177 (.646) career record in 16 season as a head coach, including five NCAA Tournament trips with the Tennessee-Chattanooga Mocs.

"Everybody should expect this team to have a great attitude, everybody should expect this team to play together and everybody should expect for them to give a great effort," said McCarthy of the upcoming season.

Stokes said that he has no plans of coaching again, and is looking forward to spending more time with his family and the job stability that comes with the move to athletic administration.

The player's believe despite the odd timing, the transition should be a smooth one.

"I think it's for the best and coach Mack is taking over so it will be an easy adjustment," Gagnon said. "We're all extremely close with coach Mack and he's been a big part of the coaching style and this basketball program the last few seasons so it shouldn't be a hard transition, overall I think everyone is pretty excited about it."

Holland will evaluate the coaching position again after this season and decide which direction to go with the program.

"We're going with the acting title [with coach McCarthy] and we're going to stay with that until the spring, then we're going to decide where we are," he said. "We didn't want a referendum on coach Stokes and we don't want one on coach McCarthy. That will be decided with all the information at the end of the year, we'll either be renegotiating a nice, big contract with coach McCarthy or we'll be looking for a new coach, I think it's that simple."

Despite the 14-44 record, Stokes said he was proud of what he accomplished both on and off the court in his two seasons at ECU.

"I'm not ashamed of the last two years," Stokes said. "We have better athletes, we have better talent, we worked extremely hard with the student's GPA, scheduling, not trying to miss classes.

"The bottom line is I just felt we didn't win enough games. Next year would have been a very critical year for me and I just thought to eliminate some of the pressure and strain that comes with that, I could be better served as the associate AD of basketball."