Fullerton coach knows job security is tough to get

When Cal State Fullerton’s Andy Newman talks to his basketball players about producing under pressure, he speaks from experience.

When he counsels patience and playing the games one at a time, he isn’t mouthing empty platitudes, he is living what he preaches.  

Newman, you see, is one of three head coaches on the 347-man Division I level this season that has “interim” in his title. And, probably, the one with the most challenging situation.

As uncertain as the coaching profession can be sometimes in college athletics, it is more so for an interim coach. Without a contract that lasts past the current season or benefit of a generous parachute clause, he is a temporary hire pressed into service with little guaranteed shelf life. His title is attached with Velcro and there are no promises or assurances about what comes beyond the current season.

Newman brings the 7-5 Titans to the Stan Sheriff Center tonight against Hawaii. He has had the job for six months since the abrupt resignation of nine-year veteran Bob Burton, time enough to already be working with his third athletic director.

The 37-year-old Newman, who had been a Burton assistant for those years, inherited not only a team in flux, but an athletic department in transition. Former UH athletic director Jim Donovan, who took over at CSUF on Wednesday, follows interim AD Stephen Walk, who replaced Brian Quinn, the man who gave Newman the job. In between, Cal State Fullerton, which had been the object of a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by a softball coach, has taken on a new president and vice president for student affairs. 

Burton, who spent nine seasons at CSUF becoming the Titans’ winningest coach (155-122), resigned suddenly during the summer, following a dysfunctional end to what had been a promising season. The Titans finished 21-10, took second place in the Big West and played in a postseason marred by internecine struggles in which several players threatened to quit and one of the leading scorers transferred.

Since taking the job, Newman said he has lost four post players to injury.

So, yes, you could say Newman has his work cut out for him this season, even with the conference’s top guard tandem, D.J. Seeley and Kwame Vaughn.

For this, Newman, who has a degree in finance, walked away from a comfortable Silicon Valley job with Hitachi Data Systems after 41⁄2 months. He wanted back into basketball and was willing to pay the price, which, in his case was a $1,200-a-year job at Vanguard University. “The second year they bumped it way up to $2,500 and the third year I was making $5,400,” Newman said.

But he was hooked on coaching and willing to do late-night data-entry work and clean golf carts to pay the bills while he also paid his dues.

“Hopefully, we’ll do a good enough job that we will be the kind of people they want to continue to run this program,” Newman said.

In the meantime, there is at least one full-time job headed Newman’s way. “In four weeks we’re having our first child and I’ll be a father.”

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.