I'm Jamarcus Russell. I grew up and everybody knew I was going to be special. I'm an unbelievable athlete and an incredible physical specimen. I went to play football at LSU, and did pretty well. At the end of my redshirt sophomore year, I was named to the All-SEC team. I had a solid junior year, too, and my Tigers went 10-2. We thrashed Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, and I had an awesome game. People finally noticed me when I was running and throwing all over the Golden Domers. Things were going so well, I decided to enter the NFL Draft. I was unreal at the combine and my individual workouts, because I'm 6-6, 285 pounds, and ran the 40 yard dash in 4.83 seconds.
So, when it came time for the draft, me going No. 1 was a foregone conclusion. Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders took me because they had seen me in that Sugar Bowl and then in those workouts.
Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned in the pros. People realized that I'm not actually as good as I looked the one time they saw me on national TV. My career stats, after being the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft: 52.1 percent completion, 18 TDs, 23 INTs. Good enough for a 65.2 quarterback rating in my career. Right now, I'm just a free agent. I haven't played football since 2009.
Now, I'm Billy Gillispie. I spent my first eight years coaching as an assistant, some of them under Bill Self at Tulsa and Illinois, so I learned some good stuff about basketball. Then, UTEP decided to give me an opportunity to be a head coach. My first year was a disaster. My Miners went 6-24. The following year, however, I got to show off my recruiting prowess, and got some of my players involved in the program. We went 24-8 that year, the biggest turnaround in the entire NCAA Division 1. My coaching job was so impressive, that I wasn't gonna be sticking around El Paso for long. Texas A&M offered me some big bucks, and I jumped at the opportunity. It was like a dream come true. All I did was coach for two years, and only have one good one, and now I'm already getting paid to coach at a huge school like Texas A&M? Pretty easy decision.
Things went well in Aggie-ville right off the bat. I inherited a team that had gone 7-21 the year before, and I led them to a 21-10 record in my first year. Now, it should be mentioned that we started off 11-0, and then only finished 10-10 when we actually had to play some tougher teams, but still, things were improving. In my second year, we were legit. We went 21-8, and 10-6 in the Big 12. We made the NCAA Tournament and lost a tough one in the second round. Still, I had made my mark. I was on the coaching map.
In my third year at A&M, we made an unbelievable run. It may have been mostly due to the fact that Acie Law IV was on my team, and had one of the great clutch seasons a guard ever has in college basketball, but after the season, nobody remembered him. It was the coaching job I had done that stuck with them.
So much so, that after just three years at my second program and five years total as a head coach, I was offered one of the premiere positions in the country: Kentucky. Again, it was a no-brainer for me. I was still in the prime of my life, had been a head coach for just five years, and only had two really good seasons, and I was at a top 3 job in the country?! Awesome.
Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned in Lexington. I led the Wildcats to two mediocre seasons, which at Kentucky means two bad seasons. We lost both our season openers during my tenure to Gardner-Webb and Virginia Military Institute. And, after two years, I was booted from my job. Guess the Wildcats might have put a little bit too much faith in me.
Now, I'm Shaka Smart. I'm in my second year with Virginia Commonwealth. My first season went well. I inherited a solid team, and we went 27-10 and won the CBI championship. Not too shabby. Now this year, We had another strong season, but backed into the NCAA Tournament. Everybody, including me, was surprised to see our names come up in the bracket. But I've made sure to make the most of it. I've done a masterful job motivating my team to play tough defense and be relentless with their energy all tourney long, and we've gone on one of the more memorable runs in tourney history, with a shot at the Final Four. We're playing juggernaut Kansas, but whether we win or not really doesn't matter. Of course I'd like to win, but we've done the damage to get me the notoriety I want. My team only went 23-11 during the regular season, and we were fourth in our conference. We lost to Georgia State and Drexel this year. But all of that has been forgotten. It doesn't matter now that I've gotten my team to the Elite Eight.
I have no doubt that I'll be hearing from some bigger programs this offseason about hiring me, and offering me some huge sums of money. I don't know if I'm going to take those jobs yet, only time will tell. Of course I think I'm a good coach, but when I really sit down and think about it, I've only been doing this for two years. Would some team be making a mistake hiring me? Would it be a mistake by me to accept it? Would I last in a big-program, big-conference situation, when I'm just 33 years old?
I'm just not sure, but all the cha-chinging in my ears is getting hard to ignore.
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