Nate James Is About To Take The Austin Peay Job
Barring any unforeseen complications
As you may have heard on our podcast, Nate James is a candidate for the Austin Peay job and now it looks like he’ll get it the News & Observer is reporting that James and Austin Peay are “close to finalizing” a deal.
He’s negotiating with AD Gerald Harrison, who spent a decade at Duke.
It’s an interesting move.
Austin Peay is basically a basketball school. It’s most famous player was Fly Williams. When he was there, the chant was “the Fly’s wide open, let’s go Peay!
Peay is pronounced as if it had no Y, in case you missed that.
Austin Peay is in the Ohio Valley Conference with Belmont, Morehead State, Eastern Kentucky and Murray State, so there will be some solid competition.
James is a quiet guy but when he played at Duke the cheer was “Nate’s a badass! Nate’s a badass!” and it wasn’t without merit.
James is a tough guy. The son of a marine, he played a lot like one and playing for Coach K, he had the opportunity to learn vast amounts about basketball and coaching.
He’ll get a chance to show what he can do now and we’re really excited to see what he does.
Obviously that will change the coaching staff and if Nolan Smith isn’t promoted, we’ll be surprised.
Next question: who will be on James’ staff?