Overtime | Head coaches losing respectability

Kyle Nelson Columnist

Off-seasons are either a highlight or the bane of the sports fan’s existence. There are only two things for a sports fan to do: bask in the glow of a team’s success or just complain. To die-hard sports fans, many of these complaints involve changes in players and coaches, and can reach the analytic level of college theses.

The addition and subtraction of coaches is always a controversial business. A head coach has to be really bad, or at least do something really bad, in order to be fired. Even if the coach was at one point successful, he or she could still leave quite a bad taste in the fans’ mouths. Consider Pokey Chatman, Louisiana State University women’s basketball coach. Although she was highly successful, she was accused of inappropriate actions with players and therefore, got the axe. A different situation entirely, the National Football League (NFL)’s Oakland Raiders recently fired coach Art Shell after he posted one of the worst seasons in club history. In most years, turnover happens in predictable patterns, but this year has presented a couple of interesting cases.

Case 1: Nick Saban Present coach of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide’s football team, Saban has experience at the college level and in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins. Saban was coaching Miami to a disappointing season, and though everybody knew that he was a strong candidate to leave the NFL for a coaching position at Alabama, he refused to acknowledge the future until his season was over. He then told the press that he was leaving Miami for Alabama for a $4 million a year contract. Not only did he leave his rebuilding efforts of the floundering Miami Dolphins after just two seasons, he also left a $4.5 million contract on the table in a move that insulted fans as much as it did NFL personnel.
Case 2: Rick Pitino This is the classic National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) meets National Basketball Association (NBA) scenario. Currently, Larry Brown has been the only coach in recent years able to succeed in both NCAA and NBA basketball, but unfortunately the smear he has left on basketball as of late may be too great to remember his legacy. However, others, namely Rick Pitino, have not fared so well. Pitino was the most legendary and loved University of Kentucky coach since the fabled Adolph Rupp. Pitino then jumped to the NBA only to record four sub-par seasons with the Boston Celtics. He is currently trying to revive his collegiate legacy at the University of Louisville (a Final Four appearance in 2005 hasn’t hurt), but his betrayal of the University of Kentucky has not been forgotten. Still bitter about his decision to leave almost 10 years ago, the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry is as vicious as any Duke-North Carolina contest.
Case 3: Bob Huggins He is a coach that knows how to recruit. Legendary for his efforts at the University of Cincinnati, Huggins was let go due to a DUI conviction as well as a history of other transgressions and shady dealings. He was still an amazing coach, and it came as no surprise that Kansas State University fired the underachieving Jim Woolridge and hired the well-known Huggins. Huggins responded by landing a top 10 high school recruit and guiding the previously stagnant Wildcats deep into the National Invitation Tournament. With Huggins at the helm, this could have been the first team since Syracuse in 2003 to win the national title on the backs of freshmen. Kansas was abuzz until Huggins, without alerting the Kansas press, decided that he would leave for his dream-job at the University of West Virginia. Some Wildcat players, bound to recruiting commitments, are considering taking their NBA-ready games overseas instead of straight to the NBA Draft, claiming that the decision was caught them by surprise.

So what of it, should head coaches be allowed to move on a whim? In college basketball, at least, the off-season has already seen the removal of dozens of coaches from high-major programs. When a coach leaves, it’s always a big deal, but when a coach leaves after signing a contract or recruiting a full class of players, there is a completely different dilemma.

What is going to happen when a contract means nothing? High-level programs could merely outbid each other for the services of veteran coaches and eventually the average tenure of a winning coach could come out to a Huggins-esque year. Not only are universities powerless to stop such duplicity, they are also implicated in it, even if in some cases like Kansas State or Texas A&M, are the victims. Texas A&M is now going after a new coach in the same way Kentucky stole theirs.

Whether involving Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA, or any NCAA sport, there is simply a lack of regulation in sports. In the NCAA, where nonprofit status benefits so many athletic departments and where schools profit off of their “scholar”-athletes’ amateur status, issues like the coaching-change scandals of late, are all the more disturbing. With a recent increase in parity between the upper levels of competition, the demand for winning coaches will increase. And with a lack of regulation and cessation, the NCAA will merely let breakthrough coaches get swept up by high-major schools, ultimately destroying the reason why we watch college sports.

Whether it is Nick Saban betraying a professional franchise for college, countless college coaches spurning their ranks for the pros, or even the college coaches who ride success to the high major ranks, the art of coaching and the team concept are being threatened by the lackadaisical response to recent bizarre situations left unchecked in the NCAA’s endless gray area.

I’m not proposing a solution; I’m just tired of this ever-growing trend, one that threatens to destroy all of the sports that I love on every level. There is not an honor higher than that of a head coach. A head coach earns the respect of fans, players, and his peers alike, can be either loved or hated at any given moment, and controls the destiny of a team.

However, when a head coach threatens the integrity of the game, and it begins to happen far too often, something simply must be done. Despite certain selfish tendencies of fans, I think that everyone can agree on one thing: If anything, coaches should have more respect for the people that rely on them. As seen with the recent, abrupt, Benedict Arnold-esque moves in the ranks of American sports, such respect has been replaced by a sense of blatant disregard. It’s about time for a change.