Eilert, Baker share similar values
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MORGANTOWN -- It was a story Wren Baker just had to tell, one that after you hear it will make you think, "Man, where have I heard that story before?"
It came about in the midst of the turmoil that was threatening to tear his WVU athletic department apart before he could put it together; the turmoil that grew out of Bob Huggins being arrested and charged with DUI, leading to the resignation of the Hall of Fame coach and to a coaching search that eventually would lead to hiring Eilert.
"When I got the athletic director job at North Texas, one of our donors, who was from Missouri, sent me a crystal frog," Baker began. "I called him and said, 'Eh … Thanks? I guess I don't know what this is about.' I thought maybe he thinks I went to TCU."
But the donor knew where he was going and had his reasons for choosing just that gift.
"You know what that means, don't you?" he said to Baker, who had no idea. "Well, when you are a leader, you can't look backwards. What can a frog NOT do? It can't hop backwards. It can only go forward."
That hit home with Baker.
"Now I've carried that frog with me here. My daughter, when she was about 4, broke one of the legs off, so now it's a three-legged frog. I don't know how it changed its hopping, but it's in my office now and I don't look back at things."
You might recognize that story as a takeoff on Huggins' signature story about being picked up as a kid while walking through the little Ohio town in which he lived by the driver of a pickup truck that had no rearview mirror.
When Huggins asked him about driving a truck without a rearview mirror, he answered:
"Ain't going backwards."
Frog, truck … doesn't matter. The story is the same. You can't do anything about the life behind you, a lesson Huggins really has to take heart in now, and one that Baker and Eilert have to embrace as WVU tries to get through the turmoil that was none of their own making.
"I only look ahead and will tell you I'm grateful to be here and haven't had one day of regret since taking the job," Baker said. "Now, I've had days that were difficult days on the job, but that comes with jobs like this.
"If you are going to be in a leadership position, then you have to be prepared for those. If you are going to cash those checks, you can't lament the job. That's what comes with it. Am I waiting for smoother waters to sail in? Of course. I'd love to see that, but that hasn't been the case."
Oddly, as you listened to Baker and Eilert wind their way through the barrage of questions heaped upon them, you felt a certain magnetism drawing the two together. If opposites attract, so, too, can similarities and the point both were getting across without stating it outright was that they shared a number of important values.
You ask Eilert what values he will base his tenure as coach upon and he offers up almost exactly what you've seen out of Baker since he arrived.
"Trust and accountability," Eilert answered. "First is trust. They have to have trust in me and I have to have trust in them. Accountability … that's a couple of things that come to mind. Come in every day and work your ass off and something very special can come out of this."
He has already begun working in those areas.
"First and foremost, we have built those relationships back and something good is going to come out of this," the 39-year-old Eilert said.
The results going into Tuesday were a very mixed bag. West Virginia players are hot commodities on the open market these days.
"As most of you know, I coached a little bit early in my career and a couple of coaching friends called me and said, 'Just so you know, there are people all over the country trying to get to your kids right now,'" Baker said.
"I knew that, but to hear that from friends in the coaching business was different. I wasn't going to let that, in and of itself, direct what our process should be. Our fans, our people, this program deserve more than that."
But as all of this was developing, forward Tre Mitchell, perhaps the team's centerpiece player, announced he was transferring to Kentucky.
Kerr Kriisa, the transfer guard from Arizona, went into the portal and then came back out of it, satisfied WVU was where he wanted to be. Another key guard who was a fan favorite last year, Joe Toussaint, also entered the portal but did so without locking the door behind him.
Big man Mo Wague entered the portal but said he would consider returning to WVU after seeing his options. Another key big man, James Okonkwo, who seems to be a budding star, also entered the portal and sounded as though he had made his mind up to move on.
In the midst of all this, Montana State transfer guard RaeQuan Battle announced he would stay with his transfer to WVU and bring the nearly 18 points a game he averaged last year with him.
Turmoil does that to you.
Both rely heavily on their families for support in such times. That comes first.
When first hired, Baker wondered about how his family would handle the move.
"My real concern was Heather and I were born in Oklahoma, we'd been living in Texas and had all our families there and I was wondering how the family would adjust," he said.
Eilert's family was deeply involved in this, too. When the Huggins' arrest and resignation came to light, he realized that he could be without a job within a couple of months, his $180,000-a-year contract running out on June 30.
"If you are true to your values, it's a lot easier to have faith; if you do right by people it's easier to have faith that things will work out," he said. "It hit me, obviously, because of the situation that I could be somewhere else a year from now.
"But I just tried to keep a level head with my family. I always knew they would have my back and make things work. Was there time to think? One-hundred percent. But I locked myself in a dark room a couple of times and tried to figure things out.
"I talked to my late father, whose been gone for six years, and tried to figure out life and put things in perspective."
Now they move forward together with so much to do, so little time to do it.
"My hair is going to be on fire. We're going to take it day-by-day. We're not going to try to get ahead of ourselves," he said. "First and foremost, we have to try to solidify our roster. Guys are taking their opportunities to explore their situation and I feel like now that we're building a new foundation, I feel some of that stuff will calm down," Eilert said.
Yeah, right. It's as Baker said during the press conference, how he has come to learn that new coaches are always most surprised by how little time is spent actually coaching basketball.