Three days ago, I posted on the Murray State board regarding Coach Kennedy and his sideline demeanor. I wondered whether our coach's seemingly passive approach to players, referees, and his tone in press conferences was attributable to his diagnosis, or whether it was a basic component of his personality.

You'll recall I discussed a conversation I had with a retired sports information director at Southeastern Louisiana, who watched Kennedy both as a player and as a head coach. I posed the same question to him, and he responded by confirming the latter hypothesis.

This thread drew three pages of replies on the Premium Board. If you missed it there, here it is.

Murray State Board: Question about Billy Kennedy

Thanks for sharing the Q&A's. Interesting -

It seems the prevailing opinion is he that is just being himself, that is his style.

[This message has been edited by Silver Taps (edited 1/13/2012 11:31a).]

thanks Frenas. looks like 95% or more of them had nothing but praise for BK.

I think that Coach K will get it all together if we are able to give him the time.

interesting to read their points of view. They seem to be like our board--some disagreements over things other people see as plain facts. They also have the same comment we've seen here about if our team is actually good enough for anyone to win with.

Thanks for sharing -- good comments from folks that understand coach a lot better

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That's not Parkinson's, that just Coach K. He drove me nuts the first season or two. Our previous coach, was a fiery little guy, always screaming, clapping and stomping. I was so accustomed to his style, that Kennedy seemed downright lethargic. I'll never forget the first time I saw him in the final minutes of a tight game. It was a three point game with under 2 to play. I was screaming, full of nervous energy, palms sweating. I glance over at Coach and he's leaned back, legs crossed, calmly chewing gum.

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Transitions are never easy -- particularly when all-conference players get hurt (and still aren't 100%), another potential starter is out for 6 weeks and the coach isn't there for the first several weeks of practice. Need some more patience & support around here.

I want to see our his recruiting class goes!

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smidge34 wrote:I read the A&M board and smile. It sounded like a lot of us 6 years ago, myself included. We are 100% beholden to Billy Kennedy for where we are as a program today. My advice? Chill out, kick back and get behind these next few teams, win or lose, no matter how bad it is in the short term. He will build you a program you will be proud of, but it ain't gonna happen tonight.

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appreciate the amount of time these racer fans took to voice their opinions...loved the descriptions of previous coaches by cowboyracer...emphasis on working hard/attitude gets you playing time

we need to keep this thread alive so that everyone on this forum can read the Murray State posts from this link. It supports the idea that Kennedy has never been a fiery coach so that his dismeanor is not related to Parkinsons.

yet he has recruited well. I read on multiple Murray State posts that we need to give BK time.

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I read on multiple Murray State posts that we need to give BK time.

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I think that most Aggies are beginning to accept that. Apparently, he is going to get the time.

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I think that Coach K will get it all together if we are able to give him the time.

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There is no cure for Parkinson's.

Good comments on that board - about what I would have expected. I think coaches like Turge and BK are high character guys that represent our university very well.

But geese, after three defensive coaches in a row I am DYING to have a Mizzou-type offense. Is that so much to ask?

AG 2000 Parkinsons doesn't make you deaf, dumb and blind.

I get all this, but would counter that we don't need to "build a program." We weren't starting from scratch--we had a solid program already. Why are we so much worse this year than last, and why are we seemingly only getting worse and worse as the season goes on?

Iowa State to tu was not worse and worse. factor in that we've had some key injuries and the fact that he was out for 30 days during a crucial time.

Any new coach is going to work with what he's got and "build" after his first year...

The people at Murray State were very happy with him just last year.

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I can promise that giving time, he will take you guys to the next level, and do it the right way. What's happening here at Murray State is a direct result of BKs hard work.

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Quotes from Murray State sure sound promising. How much time does he need? Two Years or Three Years?

[This message has been edited by Go Aggies! (edited 1/13/2012 2:02p).]

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I read the A&M board and smile. It sounded like a lot of us 6 years ago, myself included. We are 100% beholden to Billy Kennedy for where we are as a program today.

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I am not convinced the Aggie faithful will hang in there for 6 years. Are you?

I'm not convinced that some of the most negative things being written here come from "the Aggie faithful." Aggies maybe, but faithful?

[This message has been edited by Frenas (edited 1/13/2012 2:31p).]

BK needs time that he doesn't have. Reading that thread a few posters mentioned that we need to "give him a few years". It's an absurd position. A&M is coming off 6 straight NCAA bids with a roster that was picked preseason Big XII champions by the coaches.

This should not have been a rebuilding year. Even if I could accept the fact that BK decided to rebuild something that wasn't broken, he doesn't have the time to do it. His diagnosis will destroy his ability to recruit. Recruits know that they are likely to go through a coaching change during their career due to his illness.

I'm sure he will be able to recruit "character guys" (i.e. mid-major talent). I'm sure he will be able to downgrade our overall talent. He is off to a good start with Jamal Branch leaving the team. We may even get better results because he doesn't effectively communicate with the current team anyways. But we won't win *****with a bunch of "character guys" running around the court. This isn't the mid-majors anymore. I would prefer to have a coach who can get the most out of the current roster and begin to build upon it.

I was also struck by how offensively inept the posters in that thread thought BK was. Clearly the "stand around" offense wasn't setting the world on fire at Murray State either. BK doesn't seem to have the coaching talent or communication skills to design and implement a good offense. Not then and not now.

BK was certainly respected there and was a great mid-major coach. But I don't think the diagnosis is the reason why he isn't successful here today. It's his style and stubborness. But his diagnosis is the reason why he can't be successful here in the future. I feel bad for him but A&M must make a move. Either move on now or regress and start completely over.

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He is off to a good start with Jamal Branch leaving the team.

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Now Kennedy did sign J-Mychal Reese that Turgeon was not going to get, so can we at least give Kennedy a 'break even' score on the elite PG roster plus and minus

Kennedy never struggled at Murray St. like he is doing this year.

Go look at his records there.

We probably will have losing record overall and for sure in conference play. He never had that at Murray St.

Can't recruit. Parkinson's. Lock thread.

Stop making it about who is a better Aggie, Frenas. If people are complaining, it's because they want what's best for A&M. If we didn't care, we'd just stop posting.

Some Aggies that I know who have had season tickets forever are not happy with Coach K continuing. I don't agree with them, but they are definitely faithful Aggies and huge basketball fans. There are two sides to this argument and the reality of Parkinson's hugely complicates things.

I just admire what this guy has done, working his way up, being a good guy. I can relate to the blow he has taken with this diagnosis. We know he is not in it for the money at this point. He has always said he wants to be here permanently. Hell, he wears a maroon jacket. That means something to me. This is his last hurrah. I want to support his effort and see him succeed with what he has left to give.

On the flip side, lots of folks careers and $ to the university are effected by the basketball program.

As for us not being a winner this season, well, I am pretty used to that being an Aggie since birth. For now, I would rather leave any discussion of him leaving to him, his doctors and the powers that be.

Thanks for posting OP! Really interesting to see their opinions, especially the well wishes and seemingly earnest desires for their former coach to succeed here. I hate the way this season is going, but at least this seems to be a reason to hope it may not all be for naught (If our players in the coming years buy in fully and we see this thing get turned around).

I see your point, but as its a message board dedicated to Aggie basketball and he is the primary player, I'll proceed.

At some point, people will begin to resent him instead of feel bad for him for staying. I still feel bad for him, but at some point we have to reach acceptance.

I'm sticking with my analysis that his energy level is MUCH lower than normal. There's a difference between being low key and being a virtual zombie. I seriously doubt that he didn't have the strength to muster up a shout out to a player on the court while he was at Murray State. I question their knowledge of his current state. Turgeon was low key compared to BCG, but Coach K is currently about 20 notches below Turgeon.

His disease will NOT get better. He will NOT make a miraculous recovery. His disease is being used heavily against him in the recruiting battle. In that battle we have two local Brazos valley kids who, while being very good, have close family ties to A&M. He has scored no big men, no signees of significance (if at all) outside the local area without family ties to A&M. The program is in a meltdown unseen since the Melvin Watkins, when many MANY posters here said all was well, all he needed was his players, be patient, new guy, new system, etc etc etc and then repeated that for 3 yrs before some of them actually began to understand what was happening. We cannot afford to wander in the desert for years trying to rebuild a program that needed a recruiting boost but not a tear-it-down-build-it-up effort. And that's what we have at this point.

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AG 2000 Parkinsons doesn't make you deaf, dumb and blind.

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No, but it does make you chronically tired, unable to focus and dramatically affects your ability to communicate. None of those are a harbinger of good things for a college basketball coach.

I support the man BK and I think he will do the right thing by A&M basketball.

I have NO doubt that he WANTS to do the right thing, the question is CAN he?

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Stop making it about who is a better Aggie, Frenas. If people are complaining, it's because they want what's best for A&M. If we didn't care, we'd just stop posting.

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Method Man: If they want what's best for A&M, perhaps they'd stop complaining about a coach in the middle of his fist year. Perhaps they'd stop posting on public message boards that he can't recruit because of his diagnosis. Perhaps they have a 12th Man tag, showing they took the time to donate to the program that they supposedly "care" so much about.

I notice that you and XL2Win, the two primary Coach Kennedy antagonists on this board, have plenty of posts. Where's your AgTag? Where's you 12th Man tag?

[This message has been edited by Frenas (edited 1/13/2012 4:12p).]

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Stop making it about who is a better Aggie, Frenas. If people are complaining, it's because they want what's best for A&M. If we didn't care, we'd just stop posting.

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Really? I always thought that people who complain are typically the same whiners who have some feel some sort of entitlement.

My thing is that if you have a constructive criticism of the basketball team and their play on the court or the coach calling the plays, etc is one thing, but to call out a coach who has not even been here for an entire year is another.

I get that people want to be heard that the sky is falling and that we suck, etc, etc but you guys are really failing to see the overall picture. We hope to be emulate programs like Kentucky, Duke, or Syracuse but we aren't those programs. We should be so lucky to have had so many consecutive tournament appearances.

This year is a transitional year in which
-our coach leaves for greener pastures,
-a decent player leaves the program for whatever reason,
-a player pass away before even stepping foot on the hardwood
-our head coach has Parkinson's,
-our best player hurt at the beginning of the season
-a key player in the rotation with a broken ankle

The perfect storm of unfortunate things has culminated this season. And this is beyond the X's and O's and how much you think our players suck and coach sucks.

At what point are you going to realize that we are doing the best with what we have?