Jimmy Collins Retires from UIC: Could Jerrance Howard Replace Him?

While Chicago Cubs Manager Lou Piniella’s retirement announcement garnered most of the attention yesterday, UIC Flames Head Basketball Coach (and former Illinois assistant) Jimmy Collins also announced on Tuesday that he is retiring, effective August 31^st.

Collins’ former assistant Tracy Dildy, who was just recently hired to be the head basketball coach at Chicago State, was quoted in an ESPNChicago.com article as saying that Illinois assistants Jerrance Howard and Jay Price would be great candidates for the open UIC position.

Via a text message reply in the ESPN story, Illini Head Basketball Coach Bruce Weber said that he had not been contacted about Price or Howard but offered a really interesting statement.

On the possibility of Howard and/or Price interviewing with UIC, Weber had this to say (make that text):

"Both are well deserving of such an opportunity and I would be excited to get either one involved in the job!"

I would not be surprised if Howard gets this job, and here’s why the former Illini point guard should be at the top of UIC’s list.

Since being hired as an Illinois assistant prior to the 2007-2008 season, Howard has received a lot of credit with helping to revitalize the Illini recruit efforts, though it’s been a total team effort and adjustment by Weber and his entire staff, including the less-heralded but extremely valuable Price.

Not even 30 years old, Howard has established some important relationships in the recruiting circles (basketball power broker William “World Wide” Wesley apparently thinks highly of him), and is certainly an important reason that Illinois has received and/or maintained recent commitments from Jereme Richmond, Tracy Abrams and other in-state players.

With Illinois stockpiling three straight stud recruiting classes (2009, 2010 and 2011), Howard has drawn the interests of schools like Louisville and Kentucky, for which he worked in basketball operations during the 2007 season. Howard is viewed as an up-and-comer in the coaching world.

While Howard has been extremely loyal to the University of Illinois the last couple of seasons (with Kentucky certainly pushing hard for his services), UIC would be a great place to begin his head coaching career:

● UIC is a sister school to the U-of-I (so there is the familiarity factor).

● It’s located in Chicago (fertile recruiting grounds where Howard has been successful).

● There would be time to grow as a head coach and build the program (Butler currently has the Horizon League under control, and it would be unrealistic for whoever is UIC’s next head coach to start competing with the Bulldogs without at least 3-4 years).

● It would be similar to a minor-league managing experience where Howard could show Illinois his head coaching chops and possibly help him fulfill his dream one day (more on this below).

Of course, Illinois fans would be disappointed to lose Howard, specifically in terms of how this development could affect future recruiting efforts (it would have an effect but the Illini would recover, especially if another former player like a Chester Frazier or Dee Brown was hired).

Inevitably, Illinois is going to lose Howard in the near future, whether it’s now, after next season or following a couple more seasons. Illinois fans need to come to grips with this reality.

I would rather see Howard stay local at UIC rather than going to a powerhouse conference, all the while taking the ropes of his own program and staying within the visibility of Illinois.

From UIC’s standpoint, Howard would give the Flames a tremendous recruiting advantage in the city and would certainly put some pressure on DePaul, which just hired Oliver Purnell from Clemson.

Howard would even make recruiting in Chicago and Peoria a bit more difficult for Illinois, though the Illini will be fine considering the reputations of Weber and Wayne McClain in those respective areas and if the program’s current and incoming talent plays to its tantalizing potential in the next few seasons.

Howard is young enough to do some good things at UIC and bring a lot of attention to the school, not just in the Horizon League but also the city and even nationally (Kentucky will be paying attention to Howard as a recruiter regardless).

The more I think about this, Howard should be a no-brainer for UIC, especially when considering the last time the Flames had to hire a basketball coach.

After Lou Henson retired from Illinois after the 1995-1996 season and the Illini brought in Lon Kruger from Florida, UIC nabbed Henson’s long-time assistant Collins as its next head coach.

In 14 seasons, Collins did a very solid and respectable job at UIC, not only taking the Flames to 3 NCAA Tournaments (1998, 2002, and 2004) and an NIT appearance but becoming the face of a program that had never been to the Big Dance prior to his hiring.

The 62-year-old Collins will finish as the school’s winningest coach with 218 victories (compared to 208 losses) and won 20 or more games 4 times at UIC.

Considering Collin’s success at UIC after coming from Illinois and then taking into account Howard’s rising profile in the coaching world and the symmetry between UIUC and UIC, the Flames need to make this happen if Howard is interested (which I’m assuming he will be).

Of course, by no means am I trying to diminish Price for the UIC position.

He is certainly a great candidate, one who is cut from the Purdue coaching tree and has more coaching experience than Howard.

Price has certainly paid his dues, assisting at Purdue for Gene Keady and arriving in Champaign-Urbana with Weber after the 2002-2003 season. Earlier this offseason, Price interviewed for the Wisconsin-Green Bay job, which went to Brian Wardle.

Price certainly has the credentials but would not be as sexy of a pick as Howard.

With that considered, UIC would certainly be prudent to consider Price seriously, especially when projecting the possibility that Howard would not be at UIC very long if successful, given his appeal to bigger programs.

Remember that Howard has said in the past that his dream is to be the head coach at the U-of-I someday (not saying that this will ever happen, but it would be something to consider the day Weber leaves Illinois, which hopefully is still many years away  and due to his retiring).

In this regard, Price could be the better long-term option if he was able to have some quick success at UIC, which has struggled since last making the NCAA Tournament in 2004.

According to the ESPN story, UIC athletic director Jim Schmidt also has Minnesota assistant coach Vince Taylor and Wisconsin assistant Howard Moore on his list of candidates.

Collins said in the ESPN piece that he would like to see current Flames assistants Mark Miller and Bryant Lowe (both of whom were on the 1997-1998 UIC team that made the NCAA Tournament and lost to UNC-Charlotte in the first round) get some consideration.

The story also notes that former Oregon Head Coach Ernie Kent could be a wild card.

I would also throw out this long-shot name: Dave Leitao, who was achieving some nice success at DePaul before leaving and struggling at Virginia.

Whatever happens, here’s guessing that UIC again taps into the Illinois coaching tree when filling the position of the classy and affable Collins, whom I will write about in the coming days.

From what I’m figuring, all signs point to Howard as the man at UIC.