Ellerbe named interim head coach

CHICAGO - Even Brian Ellerbe is surprised he will serve as the Michigan men's basketball coach.

After 10 days of searching and speculating, University Athletic Director Tom Goss resorted to naming Ellerbe, an assistant hired in May, as the Wolverines coach - at least for now.

The 34-year-old Ellerbe takes over as interim coach for the 1997-98 season less than five months after former Michigan coach Steve Fisher hired him as an assistant.

"It's probably pretty interesting to see a different face up here from Michigan," Ellerbe said yesterday at the annual Big Ten meeting in Chicago. "We're ready to go. We feel like we have a good basketball team."

Goss, who placed Ellerbe in charge of the team when he fired Fisher on Oct. 11, named Ellerbe the interim head coach for this season Friday.

MARGARET MYERS/Daily Brian Ellerbe and his wife, Ingrid, speak at a press conference Friday, where he was announced interim Michigan men's basketball coach by University Athletic Director Tom Goss.

Throughout his search for a permanent coach, Goss had said he wanted to hire someone from outside the program. But once he narrowed the field to a final short list, Goss asked the candidates two questions, one of which was not answered to his satisfaction, he said.

"One was: How will you leaving your institution impact your institution?," Goss said. "For the most part, they had a successor in mind. There was someone on staff who could move into their position.

"The second question I asked - How will it impact the student-athletes that you just recruited? As I asked them that question, I had to think about that same question for my student-athletes.

"I didn't get the question answered, and because I didn't get the question answered, I called Ellerbe and interviewed him."

Goss said he talked with Ellerbe on Thursday night, but did not make the decision until Friday afternoon.

"I'm as surprised today as I was the day (Fisher was fired)," Ellerbe said. "I look at it as a great stepping stone for the rest of my career."

Ellerbe, a native of Capitol Heights, Md., joined the Wolverines on May 29 after serving three seasons as coach at Loyola College in Baltimore, leading his teams to a 34-47 overall record.

Goss, who surprised many when he originally chose Ellerbe to lead the team over long-time Michigan assistant Brian Dutcher, indicated experience was the difference.

"I wanted someone with head-coaching experience," Goss said.

Before leading Loyola to its best conference record in school history last season, Ellerbe spent nine years as an assistant coach, including four seasons under Jeff Jones at Virginia (1990-94) and one season each at South Carolina (1989-90) and George Mason (1988-89).

Ellerbe, whose playing career ended during his senior year at Rutgers when he suffered a shoulder injury, still holds the school record for three-point field goal percentage.

While the players have expressed publicly their desire to have Dutcher as their coach, they said they were happy that the coaching staff will remain intact.

"At the beginning, we didn't think it was going to happen," senior captain Travis Conlan said. "Life takes strange twists, just like it did with Fisher."

Fisher was fired just two days after the University released a report on possible NCAA violations by the basketball program involving Detroit booster Ed Martin. The report, which revealed no major violations, was the culmination of a seven-month investigation by the University-hired, Kansas City law firm Bond, Schenk and King. The report is now in the hands of the NCAA, which will decide whether to conduct an investigation of its own.

Although the law firm only found what it termed to be three minor violations, Goss said he was concerned about many things in the report and that it was time to make a change in the program's direction.

The search for Fisher's replacement took a strange twist of its own Thursday evening when two radio stations, Detroit's WJR and Chicago's WGN, reported that former Brigham Young coach Roger Reid would be hired for the position.

But at that point, Reid was flying into Ann Arbor for a Friday morning interview with Goss, who said the job never was offered to anyone until Friday afternoon, when he called Ellerbe.

Goss said he will resume the search for a permanent coach immediately following the season.

"I believe that by conducting a search just after the season ends, we will be able to find an excellent permanent head coach and satisfy the core values our department holds dear," Goss said.

Those values set by Goss when he took office include honesty and integrity, accountability and responsibility, respect and compassion, competitive spirit, and that the team must come first.

During the short search, Goss angered many athletic directors and coaches throughout the college basketball world, including Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who publicly chastised Goss for conducting a search that threatened to take away a coach from his program so close to the start of the season.

"If I'm to set a standard with my values, I can't talk out of both sides of my mouth," Goss said.

10-27-97