Job security not an issue for SJU's Roberts

Coach's five-year deal is a "rollover" contract, meaning it's always for five years

Jim Baumbach

6:20 PM EDT, August 24, 2007

This is a big season coming up for Norm Roberts, no doubt about it. It will be his fourth year at the helm of the St. John's men's basketball program, and everyone associated with the team realizes it's of utmost importance for St. John's to improve on the court.

However, contrary to public belief, this is not going to be a big season for Roberts in terms of his contract. When St. John's hired him, the university made sure there would never be any additional contractual pressure on him, such as entering the second-to-last year in search of an extension.

According to three people familiar with Roberts' contractual situation, Roberts has a "rollover" five-year deal with St. John's, meaning it is always a five-year deal. That means this coming season for Roberts is no different than his previous three in terms of his contract status; it's still a five-year deal.

Reached at his St. John's office yesterday, Roberts refused to discuss his contract, calling it a "private matter." But it certainly makes some sense why St. John's would draw up the contract this way, to keep the coach's contract from ever being a hindrance in recruiting or becoming a cloud hovering over a season such as this, his fourth year. Typically these type of rollover contracts include a buyout clause, though the particulars of Roberts' is not known.

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St. John's athletic director Chris Monasch refused to comment on Roberts' contract, citing school policy.

Not that his contract factors into Roberts' thinking, his comfort level, or how he handles himself, anyway. Talk to him for 10 minutes and you get the sense he is completely confident in himself and his staff, and knows the basketball program has improved drastically since the day he was given the job in the spring of 2004.

The wins have not come quickly, however, to fully realize how far St. John's as a whole has come, one has to look at how far they had fallen. Roberts took over a program that was rotten, and he had to build from the bottom up. The changes he and his staff made are not all visible to the boosters and the season-ticket holders, but make no mistake, they are incredibly important to the long-term success of a university basketball program.

"We had to look at everything when we came in here, from the athletes and their classes all the way down to the uniforms and the way they ran practices," Roberts said. "We overhauled everything, top to bottom."

Monasch added, "Three years is a short period of time considering how barren the program was when he got to it. And we're encouraged. Each year our record has improved and more importantly each year he has had better recruiting classes. As long as that trend continues, we feel we're in good shape. Norm has my full support and the support of the president."

And the school's two-year probation status thanks to improprieties taken place on Mike Jarvis' staff didn't make it easy to recruit, either. While nobody on the staff would ever admit this publicly, they had to view their recruiting efforts as a step-by-step transition, initially going for players St. John's wouldn't normally sign.

In that area, St. John's believes it has reached a turning point. The staff's seven-player class this season is led by Justin Burrell, a top-20 ranked power forward who is coming off a season at a top prep school in Maine.

St. John's has two scholarships open for next year, and are in the mix for the area's three top talents. Sylven Landesberg of Holy Cross has been seen regularly on campus. And Mookie Jones of Peekskill and Kevin Jones of Mount Vernon have expressed interest in St. John's. "This is big," one person close to the program said, "because these were the types of big-time players who wouldn't even think of us a few years ago."

The new-look Big East also hasn't made rebuilding on the fly any easier, but Roberts believes the result of their work will translate onto the court soon enough. He said he is excited about this season because the versatility and athleticism on his roster allows him to install a more up-tempo style, something he couldn't do in the past.

"Things are slowly starting to turn," another person with ties to the program said. "We're really getting things going in the right direction. We're patient, but there is a sense of urgency here. We've always felt that sense."