A New Era Begins

In 2004 Norm Roberts was hired as Coach of St. Johns Basketball. Today March 19th, 2010 Norm Roberts was fired as Coach of St. Johns Basketball.

After months of talk about Roberts being fired, late last night Norm Roberts, his attorney and Athletics Director Chris Monasch met together and Norm was notified that he would be let go. This morning all the reports were made and the St. Johns Community and the rest of the College Basketball world was let know of the decision.

Norm Roberts will be remembered for the work he put in on and off the court. Though his record did not reach the highest of expectations, he came into a organization that was dropped for greatness after the sex scandal that took place in 2004 and helped rebuild the respect and dignity from a school that had lost it. And on the court he got his message across to his players to not just play hard but play with unbelievable passion.

Chris Monasch went to say that " This job is better now then it was 7 years ago thanks to Norm." That statement there alone is something Norm Roberts fans and critics can all agree on.

Now is the search for the new coach to lead this team into battle next year. Names have been thrown left and right about who will be here next year. Seth Greenberg of Virgina Tech, Paul Hewitt of Georgia Tech, Fran McCaffery of Siena and a bunch of the other names.

All talks of Chris Mullen and Mark Jackson as candidates are irrelevant to this situation. Monasch has come out and said that St. Johns is willing to spend money and that they are looking for a proven winner.

For who ever the coach is they have a chance to win now with 7 seniors next year and win after that because they will have 6 scholarships to work with and bring in who they want.

For St. Johns they need to hit a home run with the coaching decision or they will most certainly fall even further down from College Basketball grace.

Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas

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