Crutch was the Keynote speaker in St. Clairsville last week and I had spent some quality time with him over the weekend. He truly is a very down to earth speaker and I forgot how funny he is. He made a couple of comments that I thought some on this board would be interested in.
- Was ready to go to law school when he took his first head coaching high school basketball job. He said he could not pass on being a head coach and law school was always there if he wanted to go back to school. I told him afterwards, that was fake news as he knew his wife was always going to be a better attorney than him so he had to find something that he would be better than her.
- Said that WVU never formally contacted him. He did get a couple of calls from President Gee but it did not go anywhere.
- The odds of playing WLU in the Championship game was 1/100,000. He is a math guy. He met his old team WLU in the finals to win it all. He is only one of 7 coaches who finished undefeated. His lead up said is #1 in active coaches in winning %, but I really think Coach Howlett owns that one. Crutch is 67-1 over the last two years.
- To put winning a natty in perspective, he has been coaching a long time and has been successful. This is the first time he has won the last game of the season!
- He was sick the entire time out there and did not eat or hang with the team as much he he usually does.
- After the game, his team was chanting "repeat-repeat-repeat" in the locker room. He said he felt pretty good knowing that he had 4 starters back and all of key subs returning. By the time his players got off of the bus in FL, his 4 starters has decided to hit the portal. All 4 went D1. The Sunahara kid was recruited by us and ended up going to UGA. Four of his subs transferred.
- He said the total amount of NIL money for the 4 starters he lost was north of $750,000.
- Telling the story about losing his starters, he called out Doug Wojik who is the assist at MSU and was at the event. He looked at him and said these D1 coaches were contacting his players before they entered the portal, and it needs cleaned up.
- Nova SE will be going D1 before 2025. They have already been vetted by the D1 league in FL (Sun something) and will most likely make the switch.
- Has one WV kid on his team. Eli Allen from James Monroe. Said he is going to get a lot of playing time and is putting the time in.
- He picked up Trey Doomes, who wore a WVU jersey not that long ago. Also picked up a UTenn player, and a player from S. Miss.
- It was interesting hearing him talk about his basketball coaching style. He recruited a lot of transfer kids this year and they are not buying in yet. His style of play is all about how they practice and they are not liking the high intensity aspect of 100% effort while they are on the floor.
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