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Walk into Anthony Solomon's office and you'll think he's just moving in. The walls are bare; the floors are decorated with a couple of half-packed boxes, a carton of popcorn, and a picture frame leaning against the leg of his desk. Inside that frame is an article from "ESPN The Magazine" that shows him grinning wide as he accepts the job of head basketball coach at St. Bonaventure University.
That article describes an event that happened on May 5, 2003 the day Solomon was hired to heal the Bonnies' bruised basketball team.
Solomon has been working in Olean for six months. But from the looks of his office, he's still getting comfortable, still establishing his home.
After a highly publicized basketball scandal led to the departure of the umversity's dime most visible officials, the death of its chairman, and $1 million in unexpected expenses that are partly to blame for a school-wide cutback, it's clear that Solomon is inheriting a program with ample baggage that needs to be packed away forever. And as he moves in, that's the job that faces him: Solomon needs to get the Bonnies moving on, or, as he likes to put it, "marching forward.
Challenges past, but not gone
"What has hit me continuously is there are a lot of disappointed people in terms of events that happened six or seven months ago, and there is a need for healing to
place," Solomon says. "That excited me. There's a challenge in several frontiers, but I've never shied away from challenges."
It's impossible to dispute the courage it took for Solomon to accept this job. For the 38-year-old father of three, this is his first college head coaching job. Certainly that's the goal of any coach with Solomon's resume: Since he broke into the college ranks in 1988, he's been a career assistant, his most recent stop being a three-year stint at Notre Dame.
While becoming the head coach of a Division I team would seem like a dream job, the Bonnies post could appear to some to be more fitting for a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. When news broke last March that then-President Robert Wickenheiser had overruled his NCAA compliance expert and declared eligible a player whose highest...