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New basketball coach chosen by national search for '97-'00

No positions available for interim coach Miguel Curl

by Dave Bechhoefer

The Athletic Department announced that ex-Yeoman James Sullinger OC '78 was chosen as next year's head basketball coach on Wednesday.

Interim Head Coach Miguel Curl's one-year contract is up, and though Curl reapplied for his position, Athletic Director Don Hunsinger said, "We recommended Jim as a superior candidate."

Though Hunsinger regrets the loss of Curl, there was no job available for the former coach. "We don't want to make this too hard on Miguel," Hunsinger said, "but there was no position for him."

Curl was the first coach to take the men's basketball team to the North Coast Athletic Championships in over five years and worked as assistant coach to Gene DeLorenzo before DeLorenzo's surprise resignation late last year. Curl was selected from a group of applicants to be the interim coach. "Gene's resignation came so late, there was no time for a national search," Hunsinger said.

Sullinger will be the 20th men's basketball coach for Oberlin since the team was first started in 1902. He captained the Yeoman from 1976 to 1978. While a sophomore, he played center for the team during their most successful year ever, when the Yeomen went 16-11 and beat Wittenberg University in the Ohio Athletic Conference championships.

From 1978 to 1980 Sullinger remained at Oberlin to act as assistant basketball coach before moving to Grambling State University to work as a graduate assistant basketball coach while working on his M.S. in athletic administration, which he completed and received in 1982.

Sullinger was named the 1994 State of Ohio AP Division II Coach of the year at the end of his three-year term as head coach at Beechcroft High School. He has spent the last three seasons coaching at Reynoldsburg High School and currently serves as president of the District "10" Basketball Coaches Association and is south coordinator of the Ohio High School State All-Star Game.

The Athletic Department is also currently reviewing candidates for head coach positions with the football team and women's basketball team. Football Coach Peter Peterson and Women's Basketball Coach Ann Gilbert are both at the end of their three-year contracts as of this year and an announcement should be made soon as to who will serve in these positions next year. "We're sending our recommendations to the dean within the next week-and-a-half," Hunsinger said.

Three-year contracts are the norm for head coaches. "Most appointments are for three years so the person can display what they really can do," Hunsinger said.

"Everyone else, as far as I know, is coming back," he said. "I don't know of anyone who is not coming back. Full-time that is."


Oberlin

Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 20, April 11, 1997

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