Stokes: Move based on performance

Former East Carolina basketball coach Ricky Stokes said this morning his move to associate athletics director for basketball was based on his coaching performance.

Asked why he was leaving ECU's men's basketball head coaching position, Stokes said he hadn't performed well in his two years as coach and was tired of speculating if he'd be fired by athletics director Terry Holland, who had coached Stokes at Virginia.

Stokes said his new job would allow him to have an impact on basketball without putting his family through the stress of being fired. He was fired as head coach at Virginia Tech in 2003 after four seasons.

"I made the decision because I thought it was best for the program...I didn't want to go into every game as a referendum on my job," Stokes said this morning. "Every game, they throw out my record, I just didn't want that again. And no question, the untimely passing of [Wake Forest basketball coach] Skip Prosser confirmed family is more important. There are some things that have to be done [with the basketball program]...I'll still be around.

"I'm 45 now, and if I'm going to make a change, now is the time."

Holland, reached late Monday night by e-mail, said deciding to go from coaching to administration is a big deal to any coach. But the athletics director did not specifically address Stokes' move.

Holland said that leaving coaching is "traumatic for a number of reasons -- it took me a full year to leave coaching in 1989-90 to go to Davidson and even then I almost changed my mind twenty times," Holland said in the e-mail.

"...It simply took that long to get there and it was traumatic at times for all of us. But the decision seems to have lifted everyone's spirits and everyone is bonding in a way that would not have possible before with the 'weight of the world' on everyone's shoulders."