MORGANTOWN — The greatest asset we all have in evaluating someone is not found in our past experiences but in the future.

Time is our ally, snap judgments our enemy.

This opinion, of course, grows out of a long career in which first impressions have almost always been wrong, beginning with being the most outspoken of critics in Cincinnati when the Reds traded away a lot of good talent for Joe Morgan.

My critique of that deal, which only led to the domination of baseball in the mid-1970s by what became the Big Red Machine is something I’ve had to live with throughout my adult life.

And, on the day Gale Catlett was replaced by Bobby Knight protege Dan Dakich, I was convinced it was the move that would save West Virginia University basketball. As it turned out, it was, for Dakich left the job eight days later and was replaced by John Beilein, but Dakich’s only contribution to reviving the program was his refusal to start — let alone finish — the job he had signed on for.

So it was that I’ve taken a reserved approach to the hire of Wren Baker to replace Shane Lyons, something actually quite similar to the Dakich hire in that I truly believed that anything would be an improvement upon Shane Lyons.

But we didn’t just dive head-first onto the Baker bandwagon because we wanted to seem him react to a situation that was out of kilter on a level in which the spotlight would shine far more brightly upon him than it ever had before.

But now I am convinced he is the right man to move forward into what was quite a mess he inherited.

His easy-going manner, his willingness to be available, and I speak not about availability although he makes Lyons look like he was magna cum laude out of the Howard Hughes/Greta Garbo School of Availability. Instead, he seems to be a fan friendly greeter, the kind who can shake a hand and wear a smile and come away from his conversation with you having sold you not only his program, but probably on purchasing a pair of season tickets and donating to Country Roads Trust.

The truth is, that has become as important — probably more so — than running the department, but he also comes across as the kind of man in that position who will not make those snap judgments that are so dangerous and who will approach areas such as scheduling and hiring and firing coaches and creating an entertaining atmosphere at events in an intelligent and organized manner.

He came in with a football program teetering on the edge of obscurity, yet just didn’t fire Coach Neal Brown. Perhaps it was a practical decision, since they owed him more money if they fired him than they could pay at the moment with the school itself soon to announce that it had a $35 million deficit on its books.

Shortly thereafter that figure was inflated to $45 million and that made it look like they could not pay off Brown’s contract but that they might have trouble paying his monthly salary.

The first crisis of his administration came quickly as women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzoweit had made a positive impression in her first year. only to quickly exit stage left after the season’s final buzzer went off.

No panic from Baker, who instead went into a search and wound up with what seems to be a strong women’s coach in Mark Kellogg, who has begun recruiting and putting his team together and already outlasted Dakich.

There are, of course, many hazardous twists and turns ahead for Baker in his first year on the job. All indications are that Bob Huggins, feeling reborn as he ventures into the NCAA transfer portal as if it were invented just for him, will be extended shortly to make sure he coaches not only this year but next year.

That fan base is boiling over with excitement and Baker seems smart enough to let that play out rather than mess with a Hall of Fame coach in any way.

Brown’s situation is trickier. He is entering his fifth year with a dismal Big 12 record and off a losing season without a bowl and in front of him, no less, to open the new year is a trip to Happy Valley to face a Penn State team that is preseason Top 10 and perhaps a College Football Playoff contender.

History tells us that is not a good way open and, if one looks at the dark side of it, what does Baker do if WVU takes a pounding? If he wins, of course, the fans might be begging to have his contract extended, but a bad loss with Pitt two weeks off makes the opening of this football season the defining moment of Baker’s career, no matter how long it takes.

There is, however, an aura of excitement over the WVU athletic program, fans seemingly taking to Baker, the men’s and women’s basketball program creating growing interest, the baseball team leading the Big 12, drawing big crowds and looking as if they could wind up hosting a regional.

A soccer revival both on the men’s and women’s side would allow Baker to solidify his philosophies on how to run the department without looking to reconstruct too much as he guides the program into these rapid currents of rushing water that come from NIL, the portal and new-look, reconfigured Big 12 Conference.

We are in defining times for WVU as an athletic program and that’s a heavy load that Baker must carry with him, but the early returns are that he just might be destiny’s darling for West Virginia.