Gaudio Appointment Risky Decision

Ron Wellman is the best athletics director in the ACC. He has an uncanny ability to judge coaches and is willing to make a bold move when his instincts tell him he’s right.

That knack for finding talent is the reason for the school’s miraculous rise in his 15 years in Winston-Salem. From field hockey to football, Wake Forest wins despite being the ACC’s smallest school. One critical reason is Wellman’s eye for coaches like Jim Grobe.

But Wednesday’s move, promoting Dino Gaudio to head coach and giving him a five-year contract, is a leap of faith, even by Wellman’s standards.

Wake Forest should win in basketball. It has a strong tradition and an ideal arena. It can attract top coaches, as it did when Dave Odom left and Wellman hired Skip Prosser after a 148-65 run at Xavier.

The Deacons have a great school to sell as well. No one hides their Wake Forest diploma in the closet.

But winning in the ACC in basketball is no given. Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski are entrenched. N.C. State is ascending with Sidney Lowe. The rest of the league is packed with proven coaches like Gary Williams, Al Skinner, Oliver Purnell, Paul Hewitt …

The right head coach can win. But a program can sink a long way with the wrong head coach - as Wake Forest learned with Bob Staak.

Gaudio, by all accounts, is a terrific assistant. The Deacons have commitments from three great prospects in forward Al-Farouq Aminu, Tony Woods and Ty Walker. That class ranks as the best in the ACC entering in the fall of 2008, and promoting Gaudio may help Wake retain those players.

There’s no doubt this is an unusual situation. The Wake Forest program was in good hands with Prosser before his death. Bringing in a new head coach, and new staff, would have been difficult emotionally for the team and the school.

But promoting an assistant can be a risk.

North Carolina has yet to recover from replacing Mack Brown with Carl Torbush in football.

Barry Wilson kept Steve Spurrier’s offense at Duke but lacked Spurrier’s flair.

Carolina’s basketball program couldn’t continue the success it had under Dean Smith after Bill Guthridge became head coach.

ACC basketball coaches generally distinguish themselves at other schools before landing a head job in this league. Gaudio was 36-72 in four seasons at Army and 32-52 in three seasons at Loyola of Maryland.

Krzyzewski, by comparison, was 73-59 at Army, and many Duke fans then wondered why a coach with a record so modest landed the Blue Devils’ job.

That hire, 27 years ago, was a bold one by Duke athletics director Tom Butters. Butters, like Wellman, was an astute judge of coaches and was willing to make unpopular moves if he was convinced he was right. Butters rejected more established coaches and stood by Krzyzewski when Duke struggled in those early years.

Maybe Wellman is correct in his assessment again. Gaudio said all the right things and looked the part of a head coach in the news conference.

But winning the news conference - and winning in the ACC - are different matters entirely.

Most of Wellman’s moves bring a sense of Wow.