Fire the Coach! Hire the Coach!
Who would you hire to coach your college football team: Ron Zook, Rick Neuheisel, Pete Carroll, Tyrone Willingham, Dennis Francione, Lou Holtz or George O’Leary? Guess what---they’ve all been fired before (3 of them by Notre Dame!).
Coaches say it all the time--you get hired to get fired. We demand, so they get canned.
Truth is, if you or I get canned it’s a big deal. We have families to support and careers to look after. Firing is a devastating event because it’s so much tougher to get a job when you have to explain why you don’t currently have a job. But when a coach gets canned, it’s almost expected. They all make calls, keep in close contact with their coaching community buddies. And when the axe falls, they don’t cower. They simply dust themselves and move on to the next stop---very nomadic these coaches are.
Not that Doug Kay’s firing/resignation as coach of the Destroyers Monday was any great surprise, nor a bad idea. Just got me thinking about how quickly the fortunes of coaches can change--all based on winning and losing.
Take Kay for example. Just last year, his Destroyers put on an historic rally through the Arena League playoffs, making the Arena Bowl. A year later, his team’s among the worst shows under a roof--just 3-13. Did Kay forget all the firey speeches that worked so well the year before? Doubt it. Was he just crazy lucky the year before? I doubt that, too.
Truth is, what’s great about sports is it’s all about performance--winning vs. losing. What’s bad about sports is---it’s all about performance--winning vs. losing.
Some of the greatest coaches in our history, in any sport, have been canned. Bill Belichick will go down as one of the NFL’s all-time greatest coaches. He didn’t last more than a couple years as head coach of the Browns. Can you even name the Bengals head coaches over the past 20 years (well i can--Wyche, Shula, Coslet, LeBeau, Marvin). Fun fact: they all got fired (well not Marvin--yet).
Not many careers I know of where a firing is practically expected. Donald Trump would love this blog.
