Apr. 1—Opening act Garnett Stokes started the show off with a zinger — an elephant in the room one liner that spoke to the almost mind-boggling flurry of transition Lobo Athletics has seen in the past 120 days.
"We have to stop meeting like this," the University of New Mexico President said as she kicked off the school's third major athletics department introductory press conference in the past 120 days.
On Dec. 2, it was for new Athletic Director Fernando Lovo. Dec. 17 brought in new Lobo football coach Jason Eck. Tuesday was for highest profile sports job in the state, the introduction of new UNM men's basketball coach Eric Olen.
"This is an exciting new chapter for our storied program. We are building something special," the 36-year-old Lovo said, barely four months on the payroll but sounding like a grizzled veteran having already conducted two major national coaching searches.
Then came the headline attraction — the 23rd coach of Lobo men's basketball, and one of the hottest young candidates in this year's college basketball coaching carousel after he led UC San Diego to a 30-win season and the NCAA Tournament.
Olen wasted no time making clear he understands his place, and his duty.
"This is not my program," Olen said as he stood before several hundred Lobo fans, a pep band, cheerleaders, his family and media gathered inside the Rudy Davalos practice facility at the Pit.
"It's not about me. This is bigger than any single coach or individual. Lobos, this is your program, and being the head coach here at New Mexico is a responsibility I take very seriously."
Olen seemed at times emotional, maybe a bit nervous — "I didn't really have press conferences before," he told the Journal after the event was over — and at all times confident and calculated in relaying how he plans to get Lobo basketball to the NCAA Tournament.
"This is a championship program," Olen said. "Richard Pitino and his staff did a terrific job, and they've been great in trying to help us hit the ground running. They've set the bar really high. That's where it should be here.
"No one will ever have higher expectations for our team and this program than me," Olen said. "I love the passion and ownership from our supporters. The best fans in the country deserve a team that walks into the Pit with the same energy and enthusiasm that you do, a team that shows a care factor that rivals yours."
The back story
Olen, 44, accepted the UNM job over the weekend — signing on Saturday night a memorandum of understanding for a five-year, $6.5 million deal that starts with him being paid $1.2 million this coming season. Lovo and Stokes signed the deal, and made the hire official Sunday morning.
He replaces Pitino, the four-year Lobos coach who left one week ago to accept the head coaching position at Xavier University in the Big East.
Olen and his family — wife Lauren, 9-year-old daughter Avery and 7-year-old daughter Madeline — said it was difficult leaving the friends they had made in southern California. Olen is a Mobile, Alabama native who lived there until he was 24. He took a job as an assistant coach at UC San Diego in 2004 and has been there ever since — nine years as an assistant, the past 12 as head coach of the Tritons, a program that transitioned from Division II to Division I.
This past season, the program went 30-5, won the Big West's regular season and tournament titles and played in the NCAA Tournament in the first season it was eligible to do so as a DI team. He also led the Tritons to four-consecutive D-II NCAA Tournaments, and it would have been a fifth in 2020 with a 30-1 team considered a favorite to win the national title, but that ...
