Chris Holtmann left the friendly confines of Hinkle Fieldhouse for the Value City area in the Jerome Schottenstein Center in Columbus Ohio. Ohio State gave the former Bulldog head man an eight year deal worth three million a year. The Buckeyes missed the NCAA tournament the last 2 years and that just wouldn’t do. Holtmann coached Gardner-Webb and then came to Butler as an assistant for the 2013-14 season. In October of 2014, Head Coach Brandon Miller took a medical leave of absence and Holtmann was named interim head coach. He guided the Bulldogs to a 23-11 season and became the permanent head man for the 2015-16 season. The 45-year-old Holtmann was born and raised in Kentucky and played college ball at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana as a guard. He did assistant coaching stints at Taylor, Ohio Geneva College before taking the head coaching at Gardner-Webb from 2010 to 2013. He took G-W to a 21-13 season in 2013 and was named Big South Conference Coach of the Year. He was 70-31 in three years with Butler and was the Big East Coach of the Year for 2017. Holtmann should be an effective leader for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
The Bulldogs new head guy is a former player and Butler grad LaVall Jordan. Jordan played guard for those Bulldog champion teams from 1998 to 2001. He played in more winning games during his college career than any other Bulldog player. He was in 91 winning games for the Bulldogs. After graduation Jordan played basketball in Europe and then joined the Huntsville, Alabama Flights part of the NBA Developmental League for the 2002-03 season. In 2004 he joined the Butler basketball coaching staff and was there until 2007. He was an assistant at both Iowa and Michigan for the next decade. In 2016 he took the head coaching job at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee in the Horizon Conference. Coach Jordan is 38 years old and hails from Albion, Michigan. He is the first African-American head coach of any sport at Butler. His deal is for 6 years. Financial provisions of the contract have yet to be reported. Jordan will be the 24th head coach in the school’s history.
Will Power Dominates Crash Filled Texas 600
At times the Rainguard Water Sealers 600 at the Texas Motor Speedway last Sunday resembled a demolition derby more than an Indy Car race. The open wheel racers had gathered on Saturday the 9th at the Fort Worth raceway to qualify on the steeply banked track. Charley Kimble set a qualifing record for the track and won his first career pole. Next to him was Scott Dixon. Honda powered cars held the first 8 starting positions. Will Power’s Penske Car was the highest starting Chevy in the field. The race itself started at sundown under the lights in the cool of the Texas evening. Kimball jumped off to the lead. However, his old nemesis Will Power was up front in one hot hurry and challenging for the lead. Alexander Rossi made contact with the wall and was first out on lap 36. From then on Power was in total control and was never seriously challenged. On lap 151, Tony Kanaan went low under James Hinchcliffe. He banged Hinchcliffe and forced him into teammate Mikhail Aleshin. Both cars banged the wall and started a chain reaction in the lightly packed group of racers behind them. Tristan Vautier, rookie Ed Jones, Carlos Munoz, and Ryan Hunter-Reay were all collected and eliminated. The race was red flagged while safety crews cleaned up the mess. On the restart Kanaan was penalized a lap and started at the back of the pack.
Power and teammate Simon Pagenand took the lead with Dixon and Takuma Sato running to stay with them. Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden were both involved in wall contact incidents and eliminated. With so many cars eliminated, back runners Connor Daly and Gabby Chavez found themselves running for top 10 finishing positions. Tony Kanaan, with the help of his crew, worked his way back up to 2nd position. With 5 laps to go Dixon and Sato were both making a run for the win. Sato was trying to go low to pass under Dixon, hit the grass and spun into Dixon, taking them both into the wall. This brought out the final yellow light and the race finished under caution. Kanaan was 2nd, Pagenand 3rd, Graham Rahal drove a careful race and finished 4th, and Gabby Chavez finished 5th
Power said afterwards that Forth Worth is his second home because his wife is from there, so it was great to win in front of the family. Several teams were more than a bit irritated with Kanaan. He caused the major incident that eliminated so many of them and still took 2nd place. Dixon hopped on his motorcycle after the race and left without talking to reporters. Can’t say I blame him. Because he was credited with a 9th place finish, he still holds the point lead for the championship.
It was noted that changes to the banking of the track and some adjustments to the paving were causing undue wear on the Firestone tires. Firestone said they will try and fix the problem. The next race is at the Road America road course at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin for the Kohler Grand Prix on June 25th.