And I have mixed feelings about it
I could not bring myself to put a picture of this article’s subject as the lead photo of this article, simply because it would be someone in um paraphernalia. Reports came out yesterday that Tom Izzo would be interviewing current um assistant coach Saddi Washington for the vacancy on his staff left by the departure of Mark Montgomery.
On the one hand, this could be a solid hire. Saddi has been a part of the staff for a few respectable coaches… and one horrible one. He began his coaching career in the high school ranks at Romulus High School in a volunteer capacity. For those of you not from Michigan, that is a Detroit suburb where the airport is. The head coach of that high school was current Alabama leader, Nate Oats. He only was there one season before getting a paid role on the staff at Oakland University under Greg Kampe, where he remained for ten seasons, including a promotion to associate head coach. In 2016, he was hired by um and then-coach John Beilein. His job on that staff was to develop the big men, and to some extent he was successful, helping make first round draft picks out of Mo Wagner and D.J. Wilson. He did stick around for the juwan howard years, and he has recently been credited as being one of the top recruiters nationally, helping um with some of their top prospects in recent classes.
Saddi does have a connection to MSU. His father was Stan Washington, who played basketball for the Spartans back in the mid-60s. Sadly, Stan passed away a couple years ago. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Lansing State Journal about his playing days:
“Stan Washington also rose above others during his college career. He averaged 18 points per game for the Spartans from 1963-66 — still the sixth-best mark in school history. His 10.5 rebounds per game ranks fifth in the Spartans’ record book. He also was a free-throw marksman, making 81.5% (278 of 341) of his shots, tied for ninth best among MSU players with at least 200 attempts.
All three years he played — freshmen didn’t become eligible in college basketball until the 1972-73 season — Washington earned all-Big Ten honors. In his final season, he led the Spartans in both scoring and rebounding for a squad that came up just one game short of a conference title.”
And I guess this is where my Spartan fandom makes this cloudy for me. I mean, how you going to disrespect your father, an MSU all-time great, like that and go coach for the enemy and make him cheer for his rival? Not to mention the conscious decision to remain on juwan’s staff really shows questionable moral character to me. (This paragraph is mostly written in jest. Mostly.)
What do you all think of this? Would you be happy to have Saddi Washington hired to MSU? Let’s hear your thoughts.