"Yes, my incessant whining has gotten into the head of another ref.  SCORE!" 

Let’s take a look at our new coach, Mike Montgomery.  Now, I could spend a whole lot of time working the Google Fu to try to find biographic information on him.  Or I could just rely on what Stanford and the Dubs have to say about him. 

First, some biographical information:

Montgomery is by no means new to the state of California. He is a native of Long Beach, and a 1968 graduate of Cal State Long Beach, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in physical education. Montgomery continued his education at Colorado State University. He received his Masters Degree from Colorado State in physical education in 1976. Montgomery was born on February 27, 1947. In 2002, Montgomery was named to the Long Beach State Hall of Fame. Montgomery is married. He and his wife, Sarah, have two children, John, age 21, and Anne, age 18. The family resides in Menlo Park.

Here’s an overview of his time at Stanford:

Mike Montgomery served as the head men’s basketball coach at Stanford for 18 seasons (1986-2004). The success for the winningest men’s basketball coach in Stanford history included 16 postseason appearances (12 NCAA, 4 NIT), four regular season Pac-10 titles, a 2004 Pac-10 Tournament crown and a record of 393-167 (.702).

Stanford’s trips to the NCAA Tournament under his leadership came in the 1989, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 01, 02, 03 and 04 campaigns. The Cardinal made its deepest NCAA postseason run with an appearance at the 1998 NCAA Final Four in San Antonio, Texas.

Stanford received bids to the National Invitational Tournament in 1985, 86, �88, 90, 91 and 94. The Cardinal won the 1991 NIT in New York.

Montgomery earned numerous coaching honors during his tenure with the Cardinal, including the prestigious John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. He was also the Basketball Times National Coach of Year twice (2000, 04) and the Pac-10 Coach of the Year on four occasions (1999, 2000, 03, 04).

Stanford reached the 30-win plateau three times during his tenure with a school record 31 victories during the 2000-01 season and 30 wins in both 1997-98 and 2003-04. The Cardinal reached the 20-win mark on 13 occasions under Montgomery, including each of his last 10 seasons.

He led Stanford its first ever No. 1 national ranking on December 20, 1999, and the Cardinal was ranked No. 1 in the polls at some point during the 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2003-04 campaigns.

"Randle, why do you continue to pass the ball around the perimeter for 30 seconds and then shoot an off-balance 3 as the shot clock expires????" 

Before Monty coached at Stanford, he coached for University of Montana in the 1980s.  Here is some information on that time period:

[Before coming to Stanford] Montgomery had been at the University of Montana, located in Missoula, for the previous 10 years. The first two of those years, he was an assistant coach. Montgomery was head mentor at Montana for eight years, where his overall record was 154-77, for a winning percentage of .657.

Montgomery averaged 19 wins per season while at Montana, and his teams qualified for the Big Sky post-season tournament four-team format all five seasons that that particular format was used. In his last two years there, his teams went on to compete in the NIT post-season tournament.

In his last four years at Montana, Montgomery produced four consecutive 20-win seasons in the Big Sky Conference. His teams went 21-8 in 1982-83, 23-7 in 1983-84, 22-8 in 1984-85, and 21-11 in 1985-86. His winning percentage of .667 is the fifth-best of any Big Sky coach in the league�s 39-year history.

Montgomery, who never had a losing season in his eight-year tenure at Montana, served as an assistant coach for three years at Boise State before coming to Montana. He also coached at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Colorado State, the Citadel, and the University of Florida.

Under Montgomery’s tenure, Montana had five second-place regular season finishes in the Big Sky. In tournament play, Montgomery had four second-place finishes.

He even has international experience, too:

He made his third appearance along the USA Basketball sidelines in 2002 when he was named an assistant on George Karl’s USA World Championship Team staff. The USA finished 6-3 overall and in sixth place at the 2002 FIBA World Championship. Prior to the World Championship, the USA Senior Team won a pair of exhibition games defeating China 84-54 in Oakland, Calif. (8/22/02), and Germany 91-73 in Portland, Ore. (8/25/02).

Selected head coach of the 1996 USA Basketball 22 & Under World Championship Qualifying Team, he guided a USA squad that included college standouts Tim Duncan, Paul Pierce, Toby Bailey, Brevin Knight, Maurice Taylor and others, to a gold medal and a 5-0 record as the U.S. overpowered its five opponents by an average margin of victory of 38.2 points a game.

That team also squared off in an exhibition game against the 1996 USA Basketball Senior National Team that was preparing for the Atlanta Olympic Games. Montgomery’s collegiate squad led by as many as 17 points against the NBA superstar filled USA team before eventually falling by just six, 96-90.

For his outstanding coaching contributions, Montgomery was honored by USA Basketball and named its 1996 Developmental Coach of the Year. He was further honored when he was named as one of five finalists for the United States Olympic Committee Developmental Coach of the Year award.

He received his introduction to USA Basketball in 1994 when he served as an assistant coach with the USA Basketball Junior World Championship Qualifying Team. Assisting head coach Clem Haskins, the U.S. squad, which included Stephon Marbury, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Robert Traylor and others, rolled to a perfect 8-0 mark to claim the gold, and did so with an average margin of victory of 40.1 points a game.

"My balls itch!" 

I think we all had a general appreciation of Montgomery’s abilities in our heads.  But looking at his actual history, you can see how impressive it is.  Now, as a Dubs fan, I do have my hesitations.  But there is a big difference between NCAA and NBA.  Hopefully, he can recapture the magic that made him so successful at both Stanford and Montana.   He’s coached some of the greatest talents of our times.  He’s coached some of the greatest teams of not only Stanford, but also the Pac-10, setting innumerable records. 

I, for one, am incredibly excited about this new direction the team is going in.  We will continue with our review of the greatest moment of Ben Braun’s career at Cal.  But we look forward to all the new "greatest moments" hopefully in store for the program.  GO BEARS!   

Mike Montgomery has apparently agreed in principle to become the next head basketball coach at Cal, sources have reported to ESPN.

Really?  Sweet!

This is the home run hire most of the fans wanted.  I don’t know whether any of the other candidates would have been a better coach for our Bears, but I guarantee that none of them would have gotten more butts in the seats.  For a program that had been in the midst of a long, slow slide into disinterest, this immediately brings back major interest in Cal Basketball.

 …and, of course, that whole rivalry with Stanford just got fiercer.

So, the next question is, does this bring Ryan Anderson back for one more year?  My gut says yes.  Monty has proved he can develop big men, and I gotta think that, given that, Ryan’s threshold for leaving early has just jumped up a notch.

Where does the money come from?  No idea, but thank god for Cal boosters.  Monty can’t have been cheap, and I know he’s got a contract buyout with Stanford if he leaves for another Pac-10 school.  Oh, sure, the Warriors are still paying him not to coach them, but you can’t imagine he gave the Cardinal’s biggest rival a discount, can you?

Oh yeah, and big ups to Mark Loper for passing us this information.  Thanks, man!  Mark’s words:  "May he recruit some ballers and keep Anderson from going pro."  Amen.

 <Edit>  For those who didn’t see it already, a long article on Montgomery by the Merc’s Jon Wilner, written on Tuesday.  An interesting excerpt:

But things change, and what changed is this: Braun’s gone.

The job looks one way when Braun is the sitting head coach, another way when he’s not.

…

* The Braun factor: I wrote last week that Montgomery and Braun are friendly. I should have been more specific: They are not personal friends, but they have a friendly professional relationship.

Montgomery is wary of looking like the bad guy in any situation — like he’s the reason a sitting coach gets fired. That was one of his many reservations about Santa Clara last spring. He didn’t like the way the Broncos treated Dick Davey and wanted no part of that situation.

That said, there has not exactly been an uproar within the coaching industry over the Braun dismissal — nothing like the outrage over Davey.

Braun was there for 12 years, missed the NCAAs four times in the past five years, just finished ninth … nobody has stepped forward to say he got a raw deal. Because he didn’t.