Matt Painter Leaves For Purdue
04/08/2004 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
April 8, 2004
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Matt Painter era at Southern Illinois University ended Thursday with his official resignation.
Just 11 months after he was named head coach of the Salukis, Painter will join the coaching staff at Purdue for Gene Keady's farewell season in 2004 and then succeed him at the helm of the Boilermakers in 2005.
Painter broke the news to his team Thursday afternoon and will take a private plane to West Lafayette, Ind., where a press conference to officially announce his hiring is expected Friday.
For Painter, who posted a 25-5 record last season, won conference coach-of-the-year honors and took his team to the NCAA Tournament, his rocket-like ascent up the ranks of college basketball's coaching world is hard to fathom.
At this time last year, Bruce Weber was still the head coach of the Salukis, and Painter was laboring in his shadow as an assistant.
"I remember talking to my wife before we got married about how cruel this profession can be and how it's sometimes like a rollercoaster," Painter said. "I told her I had a better chance of getting fired than hired."
The odds turned out to be in his favor after Weber left for Illinois, as Painter took over and guided SIU to a season of unprecedented success. The Salukis won the Missouri Valley Conference by a staggering five games and were ranked in the Top 25 for a school-record, six-consecutive weeks.
The disappointment from a last-second loss to Alabama in the first round of the NCAA Tournament had barely worn off when Painter received a call from Purdue athletics director Morgan Burke last week.
Burke offered him an opportunity he couldn't refuse, yet Painter agonized for days over whether to accept.
"The same things that are appealing to me at Southern Illinois are also appealing to me at Purdue," he said. "I have a passion for the university, the players, the fans and everything about the program."
In the end, the chance to coach his alma mater and inherit the program from a man he describes as "like a father" was too much to pass up.
In fact, it was Keady who played a pivotal role in luring Painter to Purdue. Two weeks ago, Keady flirted with the head coaching job at San Francisco. Ultimately, the 67-year-old coaching legend decided to stay for the final year of his contract. He also participated in choosing his successor, though Painter said Keady didn't pressure him to take the position with Purdue.
"I've talked with Coach Keady a lot the last couple weeks about different situations," Painter. "After the job was offered to me, he just kept telling me to do what was best for me and my family.
"He said 'don't make this decision based on what anybody else thinks. Don't feel any pressure from me.' I really respect the fact he understood how difficult a situation it was for me."
Painter played for Keady at Purdue from 1989-93, and he keeps a picture of his former coach on the wall in his office at SIU.
"If it were a scenario where it was just a school offering me a lot of money, I wouldn't have taken the job at this point in my career," Painter said. "But Purdue wasn't just another school. I have a passion for Purdue. It's my alma mater. And then there's Gene Keady."
Unless another "high-major" school hires a younger coach in the next year, Painter will be the second-youngest head coach in the nation at a power-conference school when he takes over in 2005. He turns 34 years old in August, two months older than Baylor head coach Scott Drew.
Painter was earning $180,000 per year at Southern Illinois and will see a sizable increase in pay next year as associate head coach, and an even bigger bump when he becomes Purdue's head coach in '05.
Saluki athletics director Paul Kowalczyk met with Painter on Monday and tried to sweeten his deal with SIU by offering to more than double his current contract.
"We offered him a substantial increase, but we can't win a bidding war with Purdue," Kowalczyk said. "We appreciated Matt's service. He's done a tremendous job and got more out of our team this year than anyone could have expected.
"He's been a part of the rebuilding process for six years and left his stamp on the program. We appreciate all he's done and wish him well in the future at Purdue."
Kowalczyk moved quickly to find Painter's successor.
He said it wasn't hard to find a coach who wanted to take over a mid-major program that is one of only two to make the NCAA Tournament each of the last three years (Gonzaga is the other).
The new Saluki head coach will guide a team that returns four of its top five scorers, including conference player-of-the-year Darren Brooks.
The 12th head coach in the 91-year history of the program will be introduced at a press conference Friday at 2 p.m. as a new chapter in the storied history of Saluki basketball begins.