The most-hated man in America next week will probably be Ron Wellman, chairman of the NCAA tournament who will explain why a slew of college basketball teams didnât make the cut on Selection Sunday.
Like chairs of years past, Wellman has steadily worked his way up the NCAA food chain through various selection and planning committees and developed a reputation for coalition-building, sound decision-making, and blah blah blah.
College basketball fans donât care about any of that. They just know that later today, theyâll be praising or damning Wellmanâs nationally televised talking points, depending on what he has to say about their team.
But theyâll mostly be damning him.
While the selection committee is supposed to be fair and impartial, those rules donât apply to the chair. Wellman didnât sit on all those boring committees for years on end to NOT abuse power now. Itâs the American way.
But who is Ron Wellman? What makes him tick? Most importantly, what does his history mean for predicting Selection Sunday?
As a Wake Forest grad whoâs familiar with Wellmanâs professional successes and failures, Iâve taken it upon myself to fill this critical gap of knowledge. Here are four things every college basketball fan needs to know about Ron Wellman before he tells the world why their team did or did not make the NCAA Tournament.
1) The man loves himself some O-H-I-O.
Rookie Selection Show zealots will see Ron Wellmanâs position at Wake Forest and worry the Demon Deacons will sneak into the tourney. (Not a concern. Weâre so bad not even nefarious cronyism will get us in.) True Wellman scholars know the conspiracy theories for this yearâs March Madness were planted and nurtured in the Buckeye State. Itâs not that Wellman was born there, in a small town whose Wikipedia description reads suspiciously like a Sherwood Anderson novel. Itâs not that back in the day, Wellman pitched for the Bowling Green State baseball team, or that he still speaks with a subtle Midwestern twang that can best be described as âHomey.â And itâs not that when stressed, Wellman demands his underlings feed him peanut butter candies dipped in Wendyâs Frosty mix while wearing a sexy Brutus Buckeye costume. Itâs all of them, together.
Yes, I made up that last one, but that doesnât change the fact that Wellman hooks up his people whenever he can, consistently populating the Wake athletic department with Ohioans. New football coach Dave Clawson (last coached Wellmanâs alma mater) is the latest evidence of such; Jim Grobe (Ohio U) and the late Skip Prosser (Xavier) are two other prominent examples.
What does this all mean? Other than Ohio State and University of Cincinnati being seeded one or two spots higher than they should, probably nothing. Iâm just going to see what Vegas has to say about the bubble odds for Dayton/Xavier/Cleveland State for completely unrelated reasons.
Donât blame the messenger. Blame Sexy Brutus.
2) The man handles crisis well.
God forbid anything actually serious happen during this yearâs Tournament, but if it does, Wellman wonât be overwhelmed by the moment.
In July 2007, Prosser, the head coach of Wakeâs basketball team, suffered a fatal heart attack in his campus office. He was 56. A beloved fixture in the Wake community who enjoyed a high-flying brand of ball and quoting Shakespeare, Prosser left a void no man could fill. To his credit, Wellman didnât try. He simply emerged from the background and quietly ensured the program and team didnât implode after losing their charismatic leader.
Decisions like naming Prosser assistant Dino Gaudio head coach, unveiling a Prosser banner in the rafters of Joel Memorial Coliseum and keeping the young players shielded from the media may seem obvious in hindsight, but they were all crucial to the healing process. 2007 and 2008 was an emotional time in Winston-Salem, and Wellman handled it with grace and vision.
3) The man can work a room (and crushes TV interviews).
Wellman can blarney with the best of them. While fans of snubbed teams will be furious, or dispirited, or both, Wellman will crush in the aftermath of Tourney selection. Heâs got the total interview package â good posture, an innocuous wit and that oh so rare ability to make it sound like heâs answering the question at hand while really saying whatever he wants.
I have firsthand experience with this. Last April, the Wake athletic department took their show on the road for fundraising, including a stop at the Harvard Club in New York City. Wellman worked the room like a politician on the campaign trail, both during the cocktail hour and the formal presentation. Iâd shown up wrathful about the fate of the Deacs, but even I found myself nodding along to his talking points about âfoundation,â âthe right way,â âSTUDENT-athletes,â et cetera.
It was only hours later, back in the safety of my apartment, that I realized heâd shaken empty all our pockets and told us nothing of substance. Iâve never been prouder to call that man my schoolâs athletic director.
A sample exchange of what awaits on Sunday:
Gumbel: âThe Baylor Bears snuck in there. What stood out about them, compared to other squads that remained on the bubble?â
Wellman: âWhy go to college when you can go to (Arizona) State, right Greg?â
Gumbel: âHar har har!â
Wellman: âHar har har!â
Gumbel: âThanks for joining us, Ron.â
Wellman: âThank YOU, Greg.â
4) The man is a bathroom-talker.
As this is a piece of serious journalistic import, Iâll report the facts and the facts alone: at the same fundraising event mentioned above, after the cocktail hour but before the formal presentation, Wellman walked into the bathroom as I was finishing up at the urinal. He said something like, âWe run into one another yet again!â Then he tried to make - and hold - eye contact through the reflecting mirrors. I just nodded and laughed uncomfortably.
He didnât slap me on the back as we rotated, for which I remain thankful. For some reason, this means George Washington will be seeded well. They strike me as a school and fan base of bathroom-talkers, as was their namesake.
(Note: Iâm unable to confirm at this time if our first president made other men uncomfortable in public bathrooms.)
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Get ready for Ron Wellman, America, because heâs ready for you. Sometimes the moment makes the man, but other times the man makes the moment. Hereâs betting Wellman is the latter later today.