Florida Gulf Coast University is one of the newer institutions of higher education in the country, having been established in 1991. As you might expect, that can make raising money difficult. Former FGCU basketball coach Andy Enfield spoke about that challenge during an appearance on “The Tonight” Show with Jay Leno earlier this week.
When Enfield, who is now the head coach at USC, was hired at FGCU, he was faced with the task of trying to collect donations from alumni who were only 15 or so years removed from college.
“My first (fundraising) job, I remember going to Naples and about 50 FGCU alumni were there,” Enfield explained. “My job was to speak and try to raise some money. So I’m looking out in the crowd and during my speech I realize they’re 25, 27, and 32 years old. Those are our alumni. I took my hat off and said let’s do the pass the hat and we raised $72. It was great.”
That should help explain why FGCU was reportedly scrambling to find the funds to keep Enfield after his magical season with the team but could not get it done.
Enfield also talked about how much of an underdog the Eagles were against Georgetown, telling Leno that even his own daughter was afraid to bust her bracket by anticipating the major upset.
“The 15th seeds were 6-106 (all time) going into the NCAA Tournament,” Enfield said. “I realized that not too many people in the country thought we could win. In fact, my 7-year-old daughter Ayla brought her bracket out and she had Georgetown in the slot. She said, ‘Dad, I’m gonna root for you but you can’t ruin my bracket.'”
Who can blame her? No one saw that coming. You can understand Tom Izzo being upset with his son for picking the Spartans to lose to Duke, but picking a 15th seed to beat a 2nd seed just wouldn’t be smart bracketology.
