Time for a Change

It's a cool, Saturday afternoon in February. A few fans and some proud parents are in the stands cheering on a basketball game in High Point, North Carolina. After the first five minutes of the game, it's time to sub out all the starters and put in five new players on the floor, making sure everyone is getting equal playing time. Now, to answer your question, no this is not a game being played at Montlieu Elementary school. This is, in fact, a game being played just down the road at the Millis Center at High Point University. So why would would a college basketball game be so eerily similar to a 4th grade basketball game do you ask? The answer is simple, actually. Scott Cherry. Amazingly enough, Scott Cherry does the same job during games that a volunteer does for his 10 year-old son's team. The only difference is that Scott Cherry actually gets paid to do this.

Date back to 1993. Scott Cherry rides the bench on his way to a NCAA National Championship under the tutelage of Dean Smith. Fast forward to 2006, and we find Scott Cherry riding the wave as an assistant coach with George Mason to the Final Four. Lucky him! It truly is impressive that Scott Cherry can make it so far in the NCAA tournament just by sitting on a bench. For whatever reason, though, this qualifies him to make way more money than he deserves for a job that he is not very good at. 

Now this begs the obvious question, "But Scott Cherry brought High Point to three conference regular season championships in a row! How is he not a good coach?" Another simple answer. John Brown. After a redshirt season in 2011, John Brown went all four seasons with High Point finishing with a winning record. Prior to this, Scott Cherry had three seasons under his belt as head coach of the program, and guess what, that's right, NEVER HAD A SEASON ABOVE .500. Immediately following the JB era, Coach Cherry takes the team to another season not being able to go above .500. 

After a recent contract extension, it seems like Coach Cherry had a bit of a safety-net, but now could his job be on the line? Can Scott Cherry break .500? Can he start winning big games? Will he keep his job?

Whether or not it's Coach Cherry on the High Point bench or someone else, High Point fans just want wins.