Tickets
By Bill Koch
Go.BEARCATS.com columnist
From the beginning, University of Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin's goal was to help associate head coach Larry Davis become the American Athletic Conference coach of the year.
Cronin won the award last year, but won't be able to repeat because he has been diagnosed with an arterial dissection that has sidelined him since Dec. 20 and could keep him out for the rest of the season.
But the UC head coach is trying to do everything he can to help Davis and the team succeed without being too hands-on.
"I think the key to leadership is understanding the mindset of the people you're trying to lead," Cronin said. "Helping those guys is by empowering them, not micro-managing them. Instead of just every day handing Larry the practice plan, I needed Larry to get back into a head coach mindset so he could do the best job possible. I can't ask him to do that if I'm telling him everything to do."
Davis, 58, was the head coach at Furman for nine years before joining Cronin at UC in 2006, so he has plenty of head coaching experience to fall back on. The Bearcats are 8-3 under Davis so far, in third place, two games behind first-place Tulsa in the American following Thursday's victory over Connecticut.
Cronin and Davis are on the same page most of the time anyway. The difference is that now if Davis has a different approach from what Cronin might have done, Cronin lets him do it his way "because it gives him confidence and he's out there with them and I'm not anyway, so it may be the right thing to do. Maybe it's something he would have told me to do and I wouldn't have done, but maybe I should have."
"He's got to be him," Cronin continued. "I can't get him to try to be me. Then he wouldn't be doing as well as he's doing."
Bill Koch covered UC Athletics for 27 years - 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer - before joining the staff of GoBEARCATS.com in January, 2015 as featured columnist.