Clemson basketball coach Brad Brownell’s name generated considerable buzz during the recent IU basketball job search.
As it turns out, there was at least a conversation involving the Indiana native and IU.
But Brownell does not appear to be interested in remaining in coaching long term, and sought an arrangement that he might have only been able to find at Clemson.
Clemson Insider is reporting Brownell negotiated a special provision in his new six-year contract signed last month with Clemson that provides him a new role at the school should he decide to step down from his current head coaching position.
“Should Brownell terminate employment as head coach prior to the end of the agreement he has the option to step down as head coach and become “Special Assistant/Advisor to the Athletic Director” for the remainder of the term of this agreement for a period not to exceed four years at an annual salary of $250,000,” Clemson Insider reports of the contract language.
Brownell told Clemson Insider he informed the AD Graham Neff he wasn’t sure if he’d be into coaching another seven to ten years, citing the “crazy new world” of college basketball in the NIL and transfer portal era.
The report doesn’t suggest whether Indiana’s conversation with Brownell was anything more than a preliminary discussion like others the school probably had with multiple prospects is it sought to replace Mike Woodson. But Indiana was the only school Brownell mentioned in the report — possibly because it is the only job he would have considered beyond Clemson.
The 56-year-old Evansville, Ind. product grew up an IU fan. He was a high school teammate of IU legend Calbert Cheaney and spent a few years coaching at various Indiana schools.
Although he is just six years older than the man IU ultimately hired — Darian DeVries — Brownell has been a head coach for 16 more years and appears to be at a different stage in his career.
Brownell says he realized Indiana was looking for a longer-term solution at head coach and someone who fully embraced the new era of the sport, rather than a soft landing in the relatively near future.
“When I had a discussion with Indiana, I knew that was something that would be different,” Brownell told Clemson Insider. “I knew Indiana would not offer me anything like that, it would just be coaching.”
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