💪 Will Wade Won’t Back Down - Coaching Redemption Story

Kim Klement // USA Today

There’s been plenty of coaches who had been heralded as the next big thing in coaching, some flourish, and some get chewed up and spit away. In the case of Will Wade, he was cast aside, took the fall for NCAA violations, and fired. But he’s refusing to back down and now he’s back in the NCAA Tournament.

When Will Wade took the job at LSU back in 2017, the program was in an abysmal place. The school was coming off a 10-21 record, was poor in recruiting, and only made the big dance twice in the previous 10 seasons. So the school turned to a guy known as a program changer who was young, energetic, and a proven winner at the mid-major level. In stepped Wade.

Wade had turned around Chattanooga in two seasons there, winning 40 games. Next, he stepped in for Shaka Smart at VCU, where he led the program to 25 wins in his first season and 26 wins in the next, making the NCAA tournament both years. In his first season at LSU, the program won 8 more games than the year before, and then won 25 games and an SEC regular season championship in his second year. In his 5 years as the head guy for the Tigers, they made the NCAA Tournament 3 times, and it would’ve been four if the 2020 Tournament wasn’t cancelled.

Wade, who had been controversial in his time at LSU, was fired in March of 2022 after NCAA violations came to light. Wade was accused of paying players on his roster, which in a roundabout way, is now legal in the current NCAA structure. I’m not here to say that Wade was wrongly fired. Because he broke the rules as they stood, and received a whopping suspension for it. He wasn’t the first to ever do it, far from it, but he was caught. And it was ugly.

So Wade was cast aside, sent into basketball purgatory. He sat out of the 2022-23 season, not coaching anywhere in the country. Wade was chewed up and spit out by the bright lights of college basketball. Where to go next? Who would hire him?

In step McNeese State, a program that has seen so much up and down throughout its history, finally decided to take a chance on him. And boy has it paid off. In the two years before Wade took the job, McNeese won just 22 total games. In his first season? He won 30. This year? 26. Back-to-back Southland Conference Regular Season Championships and back-to-back Conference Tournament Championships, McNeese is going dancing again this year.

They’ve been dominant. Losing only 2 conference games in 2 years under Wade, the Cowboys have owned their competition. They project to be a 12-seed in this year’s tourney. Now, as Wade has proven himself, he’s been a hot name in the college basketball coaching circles, as power 5 programs like Indiana and NC State are waiting for his season to end to interview him. When Wade was thrown out of LSU, I don’t know if he ever pictured this day.

A man who could’ve just stepped aside, he’s climbing his way back up the mountain.

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