Still No Statement from Ben Johnson

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I'd like to express my gratitude to you for not starting the thread. I'd also like to thank you for your five posts on this thread speculating, complaining, "advising," criticizing and demanding that Johnson make the right kind of a gesture to be welcomed back into the fold. Much appreciation for your silence on no public gestures of appreciation for getting shitcanned from Claeys, Tubby, Monson, Kill, Wacker, all the wolves coaches I can remember, all the Vikings coaches I can remember.

As I've said many times before firing Johnson was the right decision. He also faced heavy and personal criticism from many fans from the day he was hired. The personal criticism continues. It's the norm for coaches who've been fired not to say anything. Pitino was unusual. It took Whalen ten months to say something. Johnson has been gone two or three.

If Johnson wants to say something at some point, fine. If he never says anything that's the norm and that's also fine.

I've tried to thank you so you'll feel good and so Johnson doesn't have to. He doesn't owe you or anybody else anything.

It's a stupid expectation.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Just because he didn't put it on Twitter doesn't mean he didn't do exactly that with Coyle and the people who actually gave him the opportunity.

To be clear, I have no idea if he did or didn't but people are making an awful lot of assumptions based on the fact that there was nothing on social media after he was fired.
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Can't believe I'm commenting on this, but here goes. Maybe he did make a statement to suits in the big office on his exit interview, thanking them for the opportunity and such. And the suits in the big office didn't feel the need to publicize it, possible at his request. Maybe not.

Reminds me a little bit of a situation that I've seen crop up in the work place. A co-worker or manager makes a move that hurts the business or brand. The upper management chastises him, possible fines him, transfers him or something else, but doesn't make a deal about it to the rest of the staff. And the co-worker lays low and doesn't make further mention of the incident. And the rest of the staff and others around the building feel he completely got away with it because we didn't hear about any "punishment", and the rumors run wild.

That's what this conversation feels a little bit like. You know, if I didn't see or hear him say Thank You for the opportunity, it's obvious he didn't do it. He got fired for not being very good, he faded into the shadows and it honestly doesn't bother me.
 

jamiche said:
I'd like to express my gratitude to you for not starting the thread. I'd also like to thank you for your five posts on this thread speculating, complaining, "advising," criticizing and demanding that Johnson make the right kind of a gesture to be welcomed back into the fold. Much appreciation for your silence on no public gestures of appreciation for getting shitcanned from Claeys, Tubby, Monson, Kill, Wacker, all the wolves coaches I can remember, all the Vikings coaches I can remember.

As I've said many times before firing Johnson was the right decision. He also faced heavy and personal criticism from many fans from the day he was hired. The personal criticism continues. It's the norm for coaches who've been fired not to say anything. Pitino was unusual. It took Whalen ten months to say something. Johnson has been gone two or three.

If Johnson wants to say something at some point, fine. If he never says anything that's the norm and that's also fine.

I've tried to thank you so you'll feel good and so Johnson doesn't have to. He doesn't owe you or anybody else anything.

It's a stupid expectation.
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I’m curious what you define as “demanding”.
 

MNVCGUY said:
A fired coach doesn't owe the fanbase anything. If he wants to make a statement great, if he doesn't that is fine too.

And Jamiche nailed it....if he did make a statement it would just get picked apart and bashed anyway so there is really nothing to be gained by him making any kind of public statement.
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It is interesting that there is a thread going on right now about how everyone likes Pitino and the things he says about the U even though it didn’t work out here, but the gang on here that was dead wrong about the Bem wants to make it sound like Ben never got a fair shake and everyone would rip him apart if commented on his time at the U.
 

jamiche said:
If Johnson ever did make a statement the folks on this board and the rest of social media would slam the hell out of it, regardless of what was said. Why would he bother?
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That's no more likely to happen than it was with Pitino. As a general rule, the fans here had little ill will and few cross words for Richard. I seem to have a higher opinion of Gopherholers than you do.
 


tjgopher said:
I don't think it is that "uncommon" for fired coaches to take awhile to say something, if anything at all.

Lindsay Whalen was fired in March of 2023 and didn't speak publicly until August of 2023.

On the flipside, I think Claeys spoke the day after he was fired.

Dan Monson technically resigned and had a news conference on campus the day he left in November of 2006.

I don't recall the timelines for Glen Mason, Tim Brewster, Tubby Smith or Pitino.
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Ron Gardenhire attended his own firing press conference and did most of the talking because Terry Ryan and Dave St. Peter seemed more upset about it than he was.
 

howeda7 said:
Ron Gardenhire attended his own firing press conference and did most of the talking because Terry Ryan and Dave St. Peter seemed more upset about it than he was.
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I purposely left the Twins off of my list. They often keep their fired managers in the organization.
 

jamiche said:
I'd like to express my gratitude to you for not starting the thread. I'd also like to thank you for your five posts on this thread speculating, complaining, "advising," criticizing and demanding that Johnson make the right kind of a gesture to be welcomed back into the fold. Much appreciation for your silence on no public gestures of appreciation for getting shitcanned from Claeys, Tubby, Monson, Kill, Wacker, all the wolves coaches I can remember, all the Vikings coaches I can remember.

As I've said many times before firing Johnson was the right decision. He also faced heavy and personal criticism from many fans from the day he was hired. The personal criticism continues. It's the norm for coaches who've been fired not to say anything. Pitino was unusual. It took Whalen ten months to say something. Johnson has been gone two or three.

If Johnson wants to say something at some point, fine. If he never says anything that's the norm and that's also fine.

I've tried to thank you so you'll feel good and so Johnson doesn't have to. He doesn't owe you or anybody else anything.

It's a stupid expectation.
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You don't think that the conditions of his hiring, both regarding what was happening in Mpls at that time, as well as that he had zero college head coaching experience period and had been turned down by Montana State and Northern Illinois (if memory serves correctly), made his hire as HC at a P4 school extraordinary?

I do.

Does that warrant a statement sooner than later? I have no idea. But I do think his hiring was an extraordinary decision.
 

WoodburyTim said:
It is interesting that there is a thread going on right now about how everyone likes Pitino and the things he says about the U even though it didn’t work out here, but the gang on here that was dead wrong about the Bem wants to make it sound like Ben never got a fair shake and everyone would rip him apart if commented on his time at the U.
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If you are going to attack people who post here (nothing wrong with that in my book), at least make the effort to attack actual arguments made by them rather than use ones that you've fabricated for the sole purpose of making attacks. I haven't read anyone arguing that Ben didn't get a fair chance here. Now, some may have implied that he could have been supported with greater resources but it's not clear that could have been accomplished with him in the position. For whatever reasons, the guy failed here. I will give him credit over Pitino for two aspects of his tenure: he was here for only half as long and his performance made the firing decision an easy call.
 



GopherGrit said:
You don't think that the conditions of his hiring, both regarding what was happening in Mpls at that time, as well as that he had zero college head coaching experience period and had been turned down by Montana State and Northern Illinois (if memory serves correctly), made his hire as HC at a P4 school extraordinary?

I do.

Does that warrant a statement sooner than later? I have no idea. But I do think his hiring was an extraordinary decision.
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That's been rehashed a million times and has nothing to do with whether or not he should make a public statement.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
If you are going to attack people who post here (nothing wrong with that in my book), at least make the effort to attack actual arguments made by them rather than use ones that you've fabricated for the sole purpose of making attacks. I haven't read anyone arguing that Ben didn't get a fair chance here. Now, some may have implied that he could have been supported with greater resources but it's not clear that could have been accomplished with him in the position. For whatever reasons, the guy failed here. I will give him credit over Pitino for two aspects of his tenure: he was here for only half as long and his performance made the firing decision an easy call.
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Well said. I have wondered for years where the secret message board full of Ben Johnson apologists was.

There were some media members that fit the apologist mold (especially near the end). But for the most part posters here either gave up on Johnson at the begining or hoped for the best. But outside of a couple of extremes nobody here had a porblem with Johnson getting fired when he did.
 

jamiche said:
That's been rehashed a million times and has nothing to do with whether or not he should make a public statement.
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I was talking about if he should give an interview about all the things sooner rather than later.

Not if he should give one at all. I think that would be borderline preposterous to never speak on it, ever.

Happy to agree to disagree.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
If you are going to attack people who post here (nothing wrong with that in my book), at least make the effort to attack actual arguments made by them rather than use ones that you've fabricated for the sole purpose of making attacks. I haven't read anyone arguing that Ben didn't get a fair chance here. Now, some may have implied that he could have been supported with greater resources but it's not clear that could have been accomplished with him in the position. For whatever reasons, the guy failed here. I will give him credit over Pitino for two aspects of his tenure: he was here for only half as long and his performance made the firing decision an easy call.
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Attacking people? You are a nut. The fact is you were one of posters who was dead wrong on Ben and you ended up looking bad and now you are angry and throwing a fit.
 



GopherGrit said:
I was talking about if he should give an interview about all the things sooner rather than later.

Not if he should give one at all. I think that would be borderline preposterous to never speak on it, ever.

Happy to agree to disagree.
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To my knowledge Holtz, Gutekunst, Wacker, Brewster, Kill, Claeys, Monson, Tubby, Mega Tongue and all of the WBB coaches (except Whalen) never gave interviews after they were fired.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Well said. I have wondered for years where the secret message board full of Ben Johnson apologists was.

There were some media members that fit the apologist mold (especially near the end). But for the most part posters here either gave up on Johnson at the begining or hoped for the best. But outside of a couple of extremes nobody here had a porblem with Johnson getting fired when he did.
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Kind of missed the point. Of course at the end everyone was onboard with firing him when it was painfully obvious what needed to be done.

But 2 years of denying the patient was sick, only to be there agreeing to pronounce time of death once the the EKG flatlined, does not a good doctor make.
 

WoodburyTim said:
Kind of missed the point. Of course at the end everyone was onboard with firing him when it was painfully obvious what needed to be done.

But 2 years of denying the patient was sick, only to be there agreeing to pronounce time of death once the the EKG flatlined, does not a good doctor make.
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Not life and death stuff here.

Look....I get we live in a time where people demand instant satisfaction and that has bled over to coaching changes now as well. I still believe in giving a coach at least a little bit of time to get things going.

We can rehash this all again for the 8 millionth time on this board. Years 1-2 were brutal....year 3 showed signs of growth and then the roster fell apart. Had they pulled the plug after year 3, very few people would have had any issues with that decision. They didn't so we got a make or break year 4 and when they couldn't get it done they made the change.

To me that is a fair way to handle a coaching change, I know some of you diagree but I really hope we don't get to the point where coaches are consistently being fired after 1-2 years.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Not life and death stuff here.

Look....I get we live in a time where people demand instant satisfaction and that has bled over to coaching changes now as well. I still believe in giving a coach at least a little bit of time to get things going.

We can rehash this all again for the 8 millionth time on this board. Years 1-2 were brutal....year 3 showed signs of growth and then the roster fell apart. Had they pulled the plug after year 3, very few people would have had any issues with that decision. They didn't so we got a make or break year 4 and when they couldn't get it done they made the change.

To me that is a fair way to handle a coaching change, I know some of you diagree but I really hope we don't get to the point where coaches are consistently being fired after 1-2 years.
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Just an analogy. Kind of thought that was apparent.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Not life and death stuff here.

Look....I get we live in a time where people demand instant satisfaction and that has bled over to coaching changes now as well. I still believe in giving a coach at least a little bit of time to get things going.

We can rehash this all again for the 8 millionth time on this board. Years 1-2 were brutal....year 3 showed signs of growth and then the roster fell apart. Had they pulled the plug after year 3, very few people would have had any issues with that decision. They didn't so we got a make or break year 4 and when they couldn't get it done they made the change.

To me that is a fair way to handle a coaching change, I know some of you diagree but I really hope we don't get to the point where coaches are consistently being fired after 1-2 years.
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I also hope we dont get to a point where coaches are consistently be fired after 1-2 years, but thats because I hope we dont get to a point where we have coaches whose first 1-2 years look like Johnson's.

Nice guy, hope things work out well for him, but in a performance driven field, and compared to a disappointing lack of success for other people who held his position, his results were awful even against that low bar.
 

The disappointing results are one thing and could happen with any hire. What bothers me and I want NEVER to be repeated is the U hired someone as a HC who should NEVER been hired. Statement or not I’m glad Ben is no longer our HC. Wish him no ill will in whatever he endeavors going forward.
 



This discussion thread seems to have been misinterpreted. It's not a matter of whether he should make some kind of public statement; it's merely an observation that he hasn't, and wondering what's going on with him since his dismissal. It's only natural to wonder.
 

Big Dawg said:
The disappointing results are one thing and could happen with any hire. What bothers me and I want NEVER to be repeated is the U hired someone as a HC who should NEVER been hired. Statement or not I’m glad Ben is no longer our HC. Wish him no ill will in whatever he endeavors going forward.
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Don't think you will find many that will disagree with you. The Johnson hire was similar to the Brewster hire in football. Big Ten is not where you should be getting your first ever head coaching job in most cases.

It was a risky hire and time proved it was a bad hire but once they made the hire they had to give it some time to play out. To me, the biggest mistake they made was not firing him after the roster imploded after year 3 but my guess is that was a timing thing more than anything else at that point.
 

I think the heart of the issue is that Jerry Kill set an impossibly high bar of expectations for ex-Gopher coaches to rehash their time at the "U".

What I would suggest, as to why we haven't heard from Johnson, is a combination of the following:
* He never showed himself to be someone who was eager to step in front of the camera and microphones while head coach, even when times were good. It's not his thing, it seems.

* He was replaced by a good friend as head coach and his friend/HS coach was retained as an assistant on Medved's staff. It feels like a unique set of circumstances in college BB, except in those instances where an assistant is being groomed for the job by a head coach who had notable success. Who knows how that has all landed for these guys--is Johnson still in communication with Medved and Thorson?

If they are still on good terms, I would imagine Johnson looks at the situation and realizes that any statement he would make, whether independent of reporters or in front of the microphones, would be scrutinized and mined over to see if there's any bad blood between him and Medved/Thorson. Again, in this scenario, he probably recognizes that anything coming from him is a distraction to Medved and Thorson. What do you think the first line of questioning would be for Medved or Thorson when they have a presser, even if Johnson's statement is the most anodyne statement ever written. I'm sure there's a hack journalist/sports radio guy out there just waiting to pounce on the strained/broken/dysfunctional relationship between these long time friends if he can just get a morsel. But Johnson's not giving it.

* Finally, Johnson, for all his faults as a head coach, always seemed like a decent human being, no matter how elevated the pressure got. He may have bitterness about how things ended, but again, he doesn't seem to be the type to grind axes, especially when close friends replaced him/stayed with the program. I'd say we haven't heard anything because he wants his friend Medved to have the best shot possible at succeeding where he wasn't able to and a part of that is to stay out of the spotlight.
 

First off, I don't care to hear from him. Move on.

But, second, there was some logic to the hire at the time. Pitino had low equity with local AAU folks and Johnson was the antidote. Also, if he was successful, he might be easier to retain being a hometown guy and alum. Yes, he had downsides, too (largest being his first head job), and that made it risky.

The underlying premise of local recruiting being the bedrock of roster construction completely blew up, and the program was not prepared - don't know how much, if any, of that is attributable to Johnson, but it was definitely a factor in his tenure.

I actually soured on him during/after year 2. I was looking at the underlying metrics, and there was nothing - nothing - that indicated he understood how to get his teams to be efficient on either end of the floor. That, and his non-con scheduling pissed me the hell off - did he think the general public would be impressed by win totals alone?

Anyway, yeah it was a bad hire from a 2025 point of view - that's outcome bias, though.
 

I could also care less if BJ says anything but it's pretty easy to write a simple tweet just thanking Minnesota for the opportunity. It could be 4 sentences like Richard did and would take him 5 minutes.

But I also think it highlights that Ben just didn't care to do the little things with the media, donors, or for fans, and that's why he's not cut out to be a head coach.

 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
I could also care less if BJ says anything but it's pretty easy to write a simple tweet just thanking Minnesota for the opportunity. It could be 4 sentences like Richard did and would take him 5 minutes.

But I also think it highlights that Ben just didn't care to do the little things with the media, donors, or for fans, and that's why he's not cut out to be a head coach.

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Evidently you do care.
 


WoodburyTim said:
Attacking people? You are a nut. The fact is you were one of posters who was dead wrong on Ben and you ended up looking bad and now you are angry and throwing a fit.
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Dead wrong about what? I never claimed he would be a great success here but I hoped that he might be able to pull off a decent enough 4th year to get a 5th. I guess I'm just a sucker for a redemption story. Obviously he fell well short.

If I ever care about "looking bad" to a smug dolt on an anonymous message board, I should pack it in just on principle.
 

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