Fuller Might Find Job Becomes a Dead End

Cleaning out the notebook on San Diego State basketball . . .

Welcome to the graveyard, Tony.

Forget the notion that San Diego State is a golden opportunity for a young coach, particularly one who might consider the position to be a career steppingstone.

If history is a teacher, Tony Fuller has arrived at his last stop as a collegiate coach at the age of 33.

Huh?

You have to go back decades to find a basketball coach who has left (or been driven from) SDSU and went on to be a head coach elsewhere.

Jim Brandenburg, the most recently departed, probably will catch on elsewhere. However, he has not yet . . . and he does have two years remaining on his SDSU contract.

Smokey Gaines left SDSU after the 1986-87 season and has not been a head coach since. Ditto for Tim Vezie since his departure after the 1978-79 season.

Gaines and Vezie, both successfully involved in business ventures hereabouts, probably count it among their blessings that they are no longer involved with the program.

Dick Davis departed after the 1973-74 season . . . and disappeared from coaching.

George Ziegenfuss left after the 1968-69 season and 21 years as SDSU coach. Frankly, I am not familiar with what might have happened to Ziegenfuss. If he did not coach elsewhere, that takes us all the way back to post-World War II days.

What we’re talking here is a dead-end street for basketball coaches.

Maybe no one should mention this to young Mr. Fuller.

Tim Vezie had only one losing season in five, but he was fired, in part, because of a “performance clause” in his contract saying he had to win 18 games. He was 15-12 in 1978-79, his last season as coach.

Let anyone coach SDSU basketball to an 18-victory season, and Athletic Director Fred Miller probably would give him a guaranteed 10-year contract and an option to buy 20 acres in Mission Valley at 1960 prices.

A 15-12 record would probably be a worth a five -year extension. No one has had as much as a .500 record at SDSU in seven seasons, that being Smokey Gaines’ 1984-85 NCAA tournament team.

Trivia: What team and what coach knocked SDSU out of the 1985 tournament in the first round?

One nice thing about the aftermath of Fuller’s hiring was that race was never an issue. It was of no consequence that the man happened to be black.

In the eyes of Miller, Fuller was simply the best man for the job.

At least he was the best man Miller was allowed to hire by SDSU President Tom Day.

Is San Diego becoming a testing ground for neophytes?

Greg Riddoch had never managed in the major leagues when the Padres gave him such a job.

Al Luginbill had never been head coach of a major college football team when SDSU gave him such a job.

Bobby Ross had never been head coach of a professional football team when the Chargers gave him such a job.

And now along comes Tony Fuller with his first head coaching position.

No one can say San Diego teams simply recycle other organizations’ discards . . . even when maybe they should.

Don’t hold your breath, Tony.

During Fuller’s press conference Wednesday, he was talking about commitments when he got to . . . roll the drums . . . the proposed on-campus arena.

“I see a commitment,” he said. “They’re building a new activities center.”

Brandenburg made note of that very “commitment” on March 24, 1987. That was the day he was introduced by Miller as the coach who would take the Aztecs to the Final Four.

That facility was one of the “carrots” that attracted Brandenburg to the job. The carrot is still in the ground and nary a shovel has been turned to try to dig it up.

Legal entanglements have strangled the proposed arena. The next day in court is scheduled to be April 14.

“Hopefully,” Miller said, “this summer, we’ll all have shovels in the ground.”

But don’t hold your breath, Tony.

SDSU basketball may be an insomniac’s delight in 1992-93, if, in fact, it is not instead a cure for insomnia.

Understand that John Lynch, whose XTRA radio has broadcast rights to Aztec basketball, was very outspokenly pro-Jerry Tarkanian and equally disappointed that Tarkanian was not hired to resurrect the program.

If he perceives that he has a stinker of a program for his radio station, he could avail himself of almost any excuse to keep the games out of prime time.

Tune in at midnight, folks, for tape-delayed SDSU hoops.

Trivia answer: The team was UNLV. I think you know the coach.