Buffballer
Well-Known Member
I've never even heard of a power 5 basketball Head Coach that had the recruiting problems Lappe struggles with, or combined with the defection issues that plague and will plague the program this offseason. Its just strange for a coach on the verge of being imminently fired to not be able to recruit anyone for all the scholarships available, at a Pac-12 program and prestigious academic university.
Found this on the internet and found it deliciously funny considering how sad a state the program is in:
http://ouhoops.com/forum/showthread.php?p=389817
In conversation about Jim Foster being fired at Big Ten, Ohio State program the following things were said about Lappe:
3/20/13 "If I were the AD, I would at least look at Linda Lappe. I've been impressed with what she's accomplished in a pretty short period of time at CU."
"I don't think head coaches leave Louisville, Cal, Kentucky, or Colorado for Ohio State."
"I would agree normally but OSU will be throwing texas sized money at a new coach."
"Wrong. CU is Linda's dream job, and not that far into the future she will be a legend…You may quote me on that."
If you read the thread there is an otherwise intelligent discussion about Linda's contract & buyout and how much money Ohio State would have to throw at her to get her to take the Buckeyes job. I actually find it difficult to read the thread. The last post was made the day before the Buffs lost on their home floor at CEC to Kansas in the NCAA tournament. I find it hard to even imagine a time when Lappe had such a positive national reputation that Oklahoma and Big-12/Pac-12 fans were debating whether she'd jump to a bigger/better position. At that point in time that roster was mostly KMM's recruits and key players that had been recruited under Linda she was actually constantly playing head games with: namely Reese & Swan. I'll always remember that NCAA round 1 tournament loss to Kansas for one reason, Brittney Wilson was just feeling it that night, but Lappe had Kresl, B & A Wilson playing such an aggressive style of defense that they had 9 fouls between them in the game. BWil couldn't stay on the floor on a night that the Jayhawks couldn't stop her and her three was falling.
I guess that's the saddest thing for me. Over the years I've seen Lappe just waste players trying to force an overly aggressive defensive mindset. Forcing Swan to constantly try to take charges with her bad back, constantly putting her in foul jeopardy and at risk or having a chronic back ailment every time she hits the floor? It just never made sense to me. The payoff on those calls is so iffy. Swan never was a foul prone player, even as aggressive as she was on blocked shots, if you take those ridiculous attempts to get the charge call out. I used to find it distasteful that Linda Lappe would throw Swan under the bus for picking up quick fouls doing exactly what Linda directed her to do. Good coaches put players in positions where they can succeed, not in positions where they can't possibly get consistent positive outcomes.
The idea that Linda Lappe is going to be a Women's coaching legend is almost painful at this point. This is a coach that has fostered, as near as I can tell, an absolutely caustic and toxic environment on this team. Players are taking the high road, but my sense is they loathe the negativity that Linda has brought to the program. Now don't get me wrong, many very successful women's coaches are absolute authoritarians and downright tyrants, but I've found in coaching up girls and women that you have to build up much more than tear down, as is coming in men's coaching circles. It is just so easy to shatter a young woman's confidence to the point that you break the player.
Don't ever forget what Chucky said the night of her Senior night. She made a point about Jen Reese having been the Gatorade player of the year, and how obvious it was finally to see why. People forget the absolute insanity that Lappe used to engage in messing with Reese and Swan's heads. Yanking them into and out of the rotation. Someone I used to sit next to truly believed it was just random, based on nothing happening on the floor. That she had no feel for managing the game or the players.
Someone on a different forum used to accuse Linda of "faking" coaching. I thought that on its face was absurd. A coach may not be a good coach, but I didn't know what they actually meant by faking it out there. I think Linda Lappe was a nice enough person, probably. I think years from now she's going to regret the person she became and how she treated her players during her short time at CU as the Women's basketball coach. I don't think she ever had the requisite skills or experience for this role, and still can't comprehend why Ceal gave her the job in the first place. However, I think many coaches handle pressure with grace. Many coaches have incredibly warm & close relationships with their former coaches. I'm not sure when Linda Lappe leaves CU that the scorched earth will heal enough to ever offer a warm homecoming to the players that played here under her. Amazing young women like Hargis, the Malcolm-Pecks, Reese, Swan, Atcheley & Roberson had varying degrees of talent, but they all were people with feelings, and were trying their hardest to give their best for the team. At some point, and I don't know when exactly that happened, the coach seemed to start putting herself before the team concept, putting her personal goals and trying to desperately hold onto her job at all costs.
As a fan, it was very quiet, but if you carefully followed social media over the last several years, you could see from the parents of players on social media, and from conversations with program insiders and scholarship sponsors (if you knew who they were) and they trusted you, that something had gone wrong in this program. I saw multiple efforts of parents to reach out to Lappe to let her know, without attacking, that what she was doing was destructive and damaging to these young amateur-athletes. Something happened and the young Linda Lappe that we knew in this program became a very harsh, cold, vindictive and vile construct of her former self. It was an ugly transformation, and I don't think most fans actually have a sense of what these young women went through these past several years.
As Jamie Swan's Mom once tweeted:
The ugliest thing in the once proud CU Buffs Women's basketball program isn't the play on the floor, or the lack of any coherent plan or scheme to things. The ugliest part of this journey to program irrelevance has been the negative, caustic, and toxic culture that has been allowed to perpetuate within the Women's basketball program. I can't imagine having to try to endure everything these player's have endured just to hold onto my basketball scholarship to complete my education and play out my eligibility. No principal of any program has the right to make so many young people so abjectly miserable, just trying to desperately hold onto a job that she was never remotely experienced enough, qualified or capable of managing in the first place. This women's program used to be like a family. Now it feels like a family that suffered through an alcoholic or an abusive parent.
Someday Lappe will be fired. However, it will be too little too late for what many young women experienced in this program under her toxic environment. I'm not sure how the CU Buffs community and athletic family make that right, or we ever can. I also question why Ceal allowed that caustic environment to perpetuate, and continue.
The "Legend" of Linda Lappe is not a story written with a happy ending. Its the tale of a aspiring young coach that didn't have the experience, acumen, or recruiting presence to ever be successful in that role, long term. However, she could have taught many of these young women important life lessons about perseverance, dedication, and character lessons about how one conducts oneself when facing adversity. If there ever has been an example of what negative leadership is/was within this CU Buffs program I think we've seen that with Linda. The problem is that even when Linda finally is terminated and leaves, that certain young players on this team have been empowered by the wrong lessons and example Lappe has led. Negative culture will permeate within this program, that is Lappe's legacy, long after she's gone. That will be the Lappe Legend.
Seems a little dramatic and overstated. There is nothing immoral or unethical here. At worst a coach in over her head and placed in a position she wasn't ready for. There is no need to vilify LL or CB. Good people with good intent that are not successful in their current positions.
