The Carousel

Week 7

How many of you have gone to the fair and had the opportunity to ride "The Carousel"? It is one of those rides that is fun to watch. The lights, the sounds, the motion of the horses slowing going up and down, around and around. It's one of those rides that is fun at first but after while you begin to wish it was over soon.

College coaching in todays world is much like those carosels of your youth. Coaches move from team to team in search of more money, better players or a better situation in which to win a championship. We have watched coaches make promises one day only to do a 180 degree about face the next day and leave for greener pastures.

Coaches today rarely stay in one place long. This is probably due to the fact that in todays world a contract is not worth the paper it is written on and coaches can leave or be fired at any moment for any reason.

So to counter this world of “You are only as good as your last game”, coaches have learned the art of “Coach Speak”. The simple but skillful art of saying only what is true at that very moment in time but with a slight case of memory loss at the same time. For example “I plan to be coach at ABC University as long as the administration will let me”. Meaning that if I get a better offer and ABC University does not match it they must not want me any longer.

At the time of this writing there are currently several coaching vacancies around the country at major college programs. These programs look to the successful coaches at other programs to fill there needs. This then creates all new openings that programs scramble to fill, and this all happens in the middle of teams trying to get ready for bowl games and during the prime recruiting period.

The latest university of suffer from a coach coming in only to leave to soon is the University of Idaho. Idaho had just hired Dennis Erickson 9 months ago to lead their program to new heights, only to see him leave for Arizona State last weekend.

But coaches are not the only ones to blame. Universities also play the game of broken promises. Stanford resently fired its head coach after only 2 seasons. Arizona State fired their coach prior to hiring Dennis Erickson after just giving him a contract extension last summer.

What ever happened to player development? Whatever happened to loyality to a program and your players? Coaches expect the players to give their all to the program, what about the coaches? It would be nice to see programs with integrity again that keep successful coaches and also for successful coaches to stay and continue their success where they were given the opportunity. If the universities that hired them had not given them the opportunity they would not be in the situation to make more money somewhere else.

So we will continue to see the coaching carousel for many more years to come. Here is hoping a few of them can figure out that loyalty can play major dividends.