One of my close friends who is an avid Florida Gators fan stated emphatically the other day that legendary former Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan is now undeniably sorry he left college basketball for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.
I just shook my head and told my Orange and Blue-blinded buddy that his school pride is obviously interfering with normal brain activity.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand how college fans often over-inflate the value of their coaching positions and I understand that Florida fans will always love Donovan and he will always love Florida. When the Gators, under Donovan successor Mike White, were making a run to the NCAA’s Elite 8 two seasons ago, nobody was rooting harder for Florida than Billy D.
But if you ask me, Donovan, even though his disappointing Thunder are on the verge of being ousted in the first round of the playoffs by the surprising Utah Jazz, has absolutely no regrets about leaving Florida for an NBA job. Especially the Oklahoma City job, which in its original form (when Kevin Durant was still on the team) was one of the elite jobs in the NBA.
Granted, Donovan, who won two national titles and played for another during his 19 remarkable seasons in Gainesville, could have had job security for life at Florida. He could have gone down as not only the greatest college basketball coach in Florida history, but the greatest college basketball coach in State of Florida history.
Well, guess what? Donovan, who nearly doubled his college salary when he took the $6 million-a-year Thunder job, is still going to have job security for life and is still going to go down as the greatest college basketball coach in
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