What could have been

With the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the 1997-98 Division II championship team scheduled for Friday night, I've spent much of the week in the archives looking at old stories. Here's an interesting one I found from the March 19, 1998 edition, in which The Enterprise first discussed the possibility of then-UC Davis coach Bob Williams going to UC Santa Barbara:

According to the News-Press, University of the Pacific coach Bob Thomason is the favorite for the position, along with Northern Arizona's Ben Howland, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's Jeff Schneider and (Tom) Asbury, who is currently coaching at Kansas State.

Division I assistants being considered include Oklahoma's Ray Lopes, Rhode Island's Larry Farmer and UCSB's Gary Stewart, the head coach at Cal State Hayward until this season.

It's always fun to look at these prediction stories in hindsight. Williams ended up getting the job as is doing pretty well with the Gauchos.

Thomason, of course, is still in Stockton where he is a legend. But what of the other names? Howland went on to bigger and better things at Pitt and then UCLA. Jeff Schneider does whatever this is, Asbury is an assistant at Alabama, Ray Lopes is the NBDL after resigning under the cloud of scandal from Fresno State, Farmer is an assistant at Hawaii. And of course, Gary Stewart ended up in Williams' old job, just five years later.