Hlas: Hoiberg leaves ISU comfort for Chicago challenge

CHICAGO — It isn't about suddenly having a national sports profile as large as the Chicago skyline when compared to coaching college basketball in central Iowa.

Nor, said Fred Hoiberg, is moving from Iowa State to the Chicago Bulls a financial decision. Although, the $25 million he'll get over the next five years to coach the Bulls could form a sky-high stack of green.

'It's not about the money,' Hoiberg said he told Iowa State Athletic Director Jamie Pollard. 'It's about an opportunity.

'It's fulfilling a dream to coach at the highest level.'

Hoiberg said he didn't want Pollard trying to counter the Bulls' offer. 'I didn't let it get to that,' Hoiberg said.

At 42, Hoiberg's world changed Tuesday when he was introduced to Chicago as the Bulls' coach. Having led Iowa State to its second-consecutive Big 12 tournament title and fourth-straight NCAA tournament berth, Ames native/ISU grad Hoiberg could have remained the biggest fish in Iowa State's pond as long as he desired. But his basketball roots have always extended beyond Iowa State to the league where the players and coaches are the best of the best.

'When you are comfortable with your situation … do you mess with that?' Hoiberg said. 'We wrestled with this decision all the way, really, till yesterday. 'I even talked to (Hoiberg's wife) Carol a couple days ago and I said 'Are we making the right decision?' It is comfortable in Ames, we've got a great team, we've got great support.'

'But it just kept coming back to do you want to coach in this league.'

He did. And he will, to a team that went 50-32 this season and still fired coach Tom Thibodeau, primarily because the coach and his bosses had a strained relationship. Bulls General Manager Gar Forman was an Iowa State assistant to Tim Floyd when Hoiberg played there two decades ago. When Hoiberg left Chicago to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves, he sold Forman his Chicagoland house.

But it's more than friendships and familiarity. Chicago has elite players in Derrick Rose, Pau Gasol, Joakim Noah and Jimmy Butler. It's the only team that has given the Eastern Conference-champion Cleveland Cavaliers a good fight in this year's NBA playoffs.

'Obviously,' Hoiberg said, 'when you're in whatever business you're in you look at the pinnacle of that particular business. For us as coaches, that's the NBA.'

He had pro offers last season, but wasn't leaving. He liked his returning team too much, and his daughter, Paige, had a year of high school remaining. But he did make a short list of the NBA jobs he would consider if they became available after that. Chicago was one.

'We felt comfortable enough with it that we could sustain success,' Hoiberg said.

'I'm confident in my abilities to do the job here. I really am.'

He threw out the word 'championship' frequently in his hourlong press conference and in 90 minutes of one-on-one interviews with Chicago television and radio outlets. Some of it was directed at the Bulls, some at the Iowa State team he's leaving. He said the Cyclones can compete for a national-title next season.

'I truly believe it is a team that can do that,' he said. 'I wouldn't be saying that if I didn't. I wouldn't be saying that if I didn't think those guys couldn't handle it.'

Someone else will steer that squad through the Big 12 and NCAA tourney battles. The man who assembled that roster, meanwhile, goes from doting Cyclone fans to Chicagoans who will need to see big winning from Hoiberg before they swoon over him.

When it came to the Hoiberg hire, the tenor of Chicago sports talk radio Tuesday was cautious optimism at best, with questions and doubts peppering the conversations. Welcome back to the pros.

For 10 years, Hoiberg played in the NBA. Then, heart surgery ended his playing career.

'I was stupid enough to think I could go out and play with a pacemaker in my chest,' he said, 'because that's how competitive I was. I wanted to go out on my terms.'

He couldn't. But now Hoiberg rejoins the best of the best. The challenge has trumped the comfort.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com