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Bruce Pearl has major praise for Florida’s hiring of ex-assistant Todd Golden
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Florida has a new head basketball coach, adding Todd Golden officially on Friday. Golden joins the Gators after 5 seasons at San Francisco, including 3 as head coach of the Dons.
Though Golden comes to Florida from the West Coast, he does have ties to the SEC. He was an assistant on Bruce Pearl’s original staff at Auburn and spent 2 seasons with the Tigers.
Asked about Florida’s hiring of Golden, Pearl was effusive in his praise for the move. Pearl even called Golden a “grand slam hire” by the Gators.
“That is an absolutely grand slam hire by Florida. Todd Golden is in that next generation of brilliant young coaches,” Pearl explained on Saturday. “The fact that Todd bet on himself — and this is so important, I think, for anybody in any profession. If you want to be great, you’ve got to bet on yourself. So he leaves Columbia to come be my Director of Basketball Operations. And then after a year, he becomes one of my assistants.
Then he goes to San Francisco, gets back on the West Coast where he’s kind of from because he’s from Phoenix, to be the associate head coach at San Francisco. Some would say that’s a lateral, but he’s a heartbeat away from the job. His coach gets the Washington State job, he gets the job. He puts San Francisco in a position where people really think they can beat Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s and BYU, and he does so.”
Pearl also discussed Golden’s pedigree, speaking highly of the new coach’s experience as a player, assistant and head coach:
“When Florida’s looking around for a coach, you’ve got a guy with some SEC experience as an assistant,” said Pearl. “You’ve got a head coach who’s been successful in a very competitive conference. He played for a great coach at Saint Mary’s. He’s worked for some really good coaches. It may not have hurt to have Jay Jacobs as the Number 2 at Florida with Scott Stricklin. I think Jay could vouch for Todd’s character.
“I’m not excited about going against him. Like I said to Scott, he’s ten points better than I am. He is. I hope I have 15 points better talent when we go up against him. So, so very, very happy for Todd and his family.”
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
