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Billy Donovan can build a legacy at Florida, MSNBC.com contributor Mike Celizic writes.

I don’t care how good you are, if you coach in the pros, you’re going to leave your job sooner or later. You are handed a team, and the salary cap and the draft dictate what you can do with it. If you need a center or a small forward, you can’t recruit one. You have to hope all the stars and planets align and the player you need falls into your lap.

The Magic are an improving team, but he could coach 20 years in Orlando and never have the exact parts he needs to win. If the goal is to win, then it’s a lot easier to do in college, where you recruit the pieces you need, and where the players might actually listen to what you’re trying to tell them.

Win in the pros, and all anyone wants to know is whether you’ll do it again next season. Miss the playoffs, and you could be out of a job. Win in college, and you’re a hero for life. And, with 65 teams in the NCAA tournament, missing the playoffs is a lot harder to do than it is in the pros. If you do miss, you write it off as a rebuilding season. But as long as you have the legacy of excellence, you keep your job until you really start screwing up.

Donovan has won two straight titles. Only John Wooden has won more in a row. All Donovan has to do is look to Los Angeles and see how Wooden is treated, which is like a god, only with more respect. Look at any program where a coach has lasted for 20 years and, with the exception of Indiana, you see the same.

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The pros pay better in cash. College pays better in legacy. Stay at Florida, be part of the institution, be the person kids want to play for, become a legend. In the pros, they name arenas after products and corporations. In college, they’ll name it after you.

Coaching in the NBA is a different job, but it’s not better than coaching in college. If that’s what Donovan finally realized, he deserves congratulations, not derision.

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