Post by groundchuck on Dec 18, 2007 20:45:48 GMT -6
The Illusion of the SuperCoach
By Gregg Easterbrook
Special to Page 2
(Archive | Contact)
Updated: December 18, 2007, 2:56 PM ET
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We've reached that point in the year when coach mania sets in. At many NFL teams, colleges and even high schools, fans and boosters are demanding: Fire the coach, he's to blame. At other NFL teams, colleges and even high schools, fans and boosters are exclaiming: Hire the astonishing SuperCoach, he will bring instant success. The reality is, although there are a few really good football coaches and a few really bad ones, the majority are approximately equal. Most use the same drills and same plays, make the same decisions in the same circumstances, give the same pregame speeches, and launch into the same halftime tirades. They certainly all use the same Winston Churchill quotations!
Last year about this time, the Chargers, Cardinals and Falcons each made a huge to-do about firing the coach and bringing in a new coach. The difference this year? Little or none, other than the fact that the Falcons' decline would have happened no matter who was the coach, owing to the Michael Vick debacle. Last year, the University of Alabama went 6-6 and qualified for a minor bowl; the school made a huge to-do of firing the coach and bringing in a supposed astonishing SuperCoach. This season, under Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide went 6-6 and qualified for a minor bowl. Michigan and Arkansas just threw huge sums of money at new coaches Rich Rodriguez and Bobby Petrino -- and the odds are neither will preside over a significant improvement in performance because the odds are that no coach could do that!
Let's call it the Illusion of the SuperCoach. This figment has led to ever-rising pay for coaches, under the false belief that there are vast, vast differences in coaches' tactical, motivational and recruiting abilities. Pro and big-college coaches complain bitterly about the quick hook and the dismissal pressure they face after a losing season. But that's the flip side of the same dynamic that leads to college coaches being paid $3 million per season and NFL coaches being paid as much as $5 million per season. Under the Illusion of the SuperCoach -- the idea that coaches have magical powers -- the coach who presides over a disappointing season must be fired (his magic wand failed!) and the coach of the moment deserves huge amounts of money. Coaches, as a guild, benefit from the Illusion of the SuperCoach. They don't want you to realize that the majority of coaches do the same things in the same situations.
Last season, at the peak of coaching mania, I speculated about the sociological reasons coaches are being overhyped and overpaid -- from the abandonment of the father-figure role by intellectuals and political leaders to the Walter Mitty fantasy that anyone can coach. (Which is true in the sense that anyone can become a volunteer coach, whereas most people cannot become a volunteer heart surgeon or volunteer movie star.) This year, let's stick to the football flaws in the Illusion of the SuperCoach.
The first flaw is obvious -- coaches don't play! A coach's hard work, good judgment and good play calling help, but these are only a few of many factors in sports success -- and all trail the athletic ability of the players by a large margin. I'd hazard an unscientific guess that in football, the coach can be responsible for up to a 10 percent swing in results: 10 percent more points scored under good coaching, 10 percent fewer under bad coaching. In a close game or a Super Bowl run, that 10 percent swing really matters. In the majority of games, the coaching differential between opponents is small, especially in college at the football-factory level, where many outcomes are not close.
On game day in the NFL and Division I-A, many head coaches do little more than decide when to kick (answer: always) and yell at officials. In terms of practice and preparation, more important in football than in any other team sport, the majority of head coaches bring their teams to approximately the same level of preparation regardless of whether they are super-paid or little-known. Go watch a practice of any well-run high school or college football team -- and there are several hundred fitting that description. What's happening in the practice, and what the coach is doing and saying, will not differ in any substantive way from what happens at a Dallas Cowboys practice.
If you covered the names and handed me the résumés of a Petrino-style coach and someone who has coached the same Division III school for a decade, then asked me which I wanted to run my team, I'd take the Division III guy in a heartbeat. By not endlessly job-hopping, he stayed in one place long enough to prove he was for real. Which brings us to TMQ's Law of Vagabond Coaches: When you hire a coach who's only in it for himself, you get a coach who's only in it for himself. In 2006, Petrino made a big public and contractual commitment to Louisville; six months later, he walked out on Louisville to make a big public and contractual commitment to the Atlanta Falcons; 11 months after that, he walked out on Atlanta to make a big public and contractual commitment to Arkansas. Dear University of Arkansas: If your new coach just betrayed his previous two employers, why do you think he will do well by you? (More on Petrino the Weasel below.) Petrino, Saban, Mike Price, Dennis Franchione, Chuck Fairbanks at New England, Bill Parcells at New England, now Rodriguez -- year in and year out, pro and college teams enthusiastically welcome as miracle workers coaches who have just broken their word elsewhere.
Consider Rodriguez, the latest high-profile walkout. The Charleston, W.Va., Gazette reports that after Rodriguez decided to walk out on West Virginia, he spoke to his players for a mere 10 minutes -- no questions, please! -- before exiting through a side door and heading to the airport for a flight to Michigan. These are players to whom Rodriguez surely made elaborate promises during recruiting. In December 2006, when some recruits were hesitant to sign letters of intent with the Mountaineers owing to rumors that Rodriguez would leave, he reassured them by publicly declaring he would stay at West Virginia "for a very, very long time." The moment there was something in it for him -- a pay increase from $1.9 million at West Virginia to a reported $3 million annual salary at Michigan -- Rodriguez shafted his players. The Detroit Free Press asserts that even before Rodriguez announced he was leaving for Michigan, he called Terrelle Pryor, this fall's most sought-after high school player, and urged Pryor to enroll at Michigan rather than at West Virginia. Immediately after there was something in it for him, Rodriguez shafted his former employer.
And this is the coach Michigan wants! Someone whose word is not bond; someone who, if the Free Press account is accurate, actively tried to double-cross his previous school. Wolverines: If Rodriguez is a fiasco at Michigan, don't say you weren't warned. And the history of selfish coaches suggests that fiasco will come calling. Petrino, Saban, Price, Franchione, Fairbanks, Parcells -- which of these guys did really well after walking out on a commitment for self-serving reasons?
Yet every year at this time, NFL and big-college teams throw big money at new coaches who are presented as having miraculous super ability. One reason? Because there is so much money in big-deal football now, and experience teaches that when money is available, money gets thrown. Another reason involves promotion: If the team plays poorly, you can't fire the whole team, but you can fire the coach. Making one single change, at the top, is a practical move for NFL or big-college programs seeking to create excitement regarding the coming season. Modern Fortune 500 corporations seem to overpay CEOs to create excitement, essentially saying to shareholders and potential shareholders: "Wow, we hired a guy who gets $50 million a year, he must be a miraculous super-genius; our share price will go up." By the time you find out he's just another guy sitting in a chair, the shareholders have been fleeced.
NFL and big-college football programs promote their coaching choices as incredibly important because this creates fan enthusiasm about the time that ticket-sales campaigns are gearing up. (The majority of NFL and Division I-A football ticket sales occur in the offseason.) Plus, the coach is the public face of a sports enterprise, the one who deals with the media and makes public appearances. Promoting the public-face person as a magnificent mastermind with incredible top-secret skills is in the team's best interest.
All this means that, for the Illusion of the SuperCoach to work, the public must believe it! Which seems to happen every year about this time, as fans and boosters clap wildly for the arrival of a new coach who just shafted his previous team -- believing, against all evidence, that he is being honest when he says it'll be different this time. Oh, and one more possible explanation for the SuperCoach fad: Sports nuts enjoy the coaching carousel. It gives fans and sports radio hosts something to talk about in the offseason. We're in late December, and the offseason jitters are already starting. The hiring and firing of NFL and Division I-A coaches constitutes a form of entertainment.
By Gregg Easterbrook
Special to Page 2
(Archive | Contact)
Updated: December 18, 2007, 2:56 PM ET
Comment
We've reached that point in the year when coach mania sets in. At many NFL teams, colleges and even high schools, fans and boosters are demanding: Fire the coach, he's to blame. At other NFL teams, colleges and even high schools, fans and boosters are exclaiming: Hire the astonishing SuperCoach, he will bring instant success. The reality is, although there are a few really good football coaches and a few really bad ones, the majority are approximately equal. Most use the same drills and same plays, make the same decisions in the same circumstances, give the same pregame speeches, and launch into the same halftime tirades. They certainly all use the same Winston Churchill quotations!
Last year about this time, the Chargers, Cardinals and Falcons each made a huge to-do about firing the coach and bringing in a new coach. The difference this year? Little or none, other than the fact that the Falcons' decline would have happened no matter who was the coach, owing to the Michael Vick debacle. Last year, the University of Alabama went 6-6 and qualified for a minor bowl; the school made a huge to-do of firing the coach and bringing in a supposed astonishing SuperCoach. This season, under Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide went 6-6 and qualified for a minor bowl. Michigan and Arkansas just threw huge sums of money at new coaches Rich Rodriguez and Bobby Petrino -- and the odds are neither will preside over a significant improvement in performance because the odds are that no coach could do that!
Let's call it the Illusion of the SuperCoach. This figment has led to ever-rising pay for coaches, under the false belief that there are vast, vast differences in coaches' tactical, motivational and recruiting abilities. Pro and big-college coaches complain bitterly about the quick hook and the dismissal pressure they face after a losing season. But that's the flip side of the same dynamic that leads to college coaches being paid $3 million per season and NFL coaches being paid as much as $5 million per season. Under the Illusion of the SuperCoach -- the idea that coaches have magical powers -- the coach who presides over a disappointing season must be fired (his magic wand failed!) and the coach of the moment deserves huge amounts of money. Coaches, as a guild, benefit from the Illusion of the SuperCoach. They don't want you to realize that the majority of coaches do the same things in the same situations.
Last season, at the peak of coaching mania, I speculated about the sociological reasons coaches are being overhyped and overpaid -- from the abandonment of the father-figure role by intellectuals and political leaders to the Walter Mitty fantasy that anyone can coach. (Which is true in the sense that anyone can become a volunteer coach, whereas most people cannot become a volunteer heart surgeon or volunteer movie star.) This year, let's stick to the football flaws in the Illusion of the SuperCoach.
The first flaw is obvious -- coaches don't play! A coach's hard work, good judgment and good play calling help, but these are only a few of many factors in sports success -- and all trail the athletic ability of the players by a large margin. I'd hazard an unscientific guess that in football, the coach can be responsible for up to a 10 percent swing in results: 10 percent more points scored under good coaching, 10 percent fewer under bad coaching. In a close game or a Super Bowl run, that 10 percent swing really matters. In the majority of games, the coaching differential between opponents is small, especially in college at the football-factory level, where many outcomes are not close.
On game day in the NFL and Division I-A, many head coaches do little more than decide when to kick (answer: always) and yell at officials. In terms of practice and preparation, more important in football than in any other team sport, the majority of head coaches bring their teams to approximately the same level of preparation regardless of whether they are super-paid or little-known. Go watch a practice of any well-run high school or college football team -- and there are several hundred fitting that description. What's happening in the practice, and what the coach is doing and saying, will not differ in any substantive way from what happens at a Dallas Cowboys practice.
If you covered the names and handed me the résumés of a Petrino-style coach and someone who has coached the same Division III school for a decade, then asked me which I wanted to run my team, I'd take the Division III guy in a heartbeat. By not endlessly job-hopping, he stayed in one place long enough to prove he was for real. Which brings us to TMQ's Law of Vagabond Coaches: When you hire a coach who's only in it for himself, you get a coach who's only in it for himself. In 2006, Petrino made a big public and contractual commitment to Louisville; six months later, he walked out on Louisville to make a big public and contractual commitment to the Atlanta Falcons; 11 months after that, he walked out on Atlanta to make a big public and contractual commitment to Arkansas. Dear University of Arkansas: If your new coach just betrayed his previous two employers, why do you think he will do well by you? (More on Petrino the Weasel below.) Petrino, Saban, Mike Price, Dennis Franchione, Chuck Fairbanks at New England, Bill Parcells at New England, now Rodriguez -- year in and year out, pro and college teams enthusiastically welcome as miracle workers coaches who have just broken their word elsewhere.
Consider Rodriguez, the latest high-profile walkout. The Charleston, W.Va., Gazette reports that after Rodriguez decided to walk out on West Virginia, he spoke to his players for a mere 10 minutes -- no questions, please! -- before exiting through a side door and heading to the airport for a flight to Michigan. These are players to whom Rodriguez surely made elaborate promises during recruiting. In December 2006, when some recruits were hesitant to sign letters of intent with the Mountaineers owing to rumors that Rodriguez would leave, he reassured them by publicly declaring he would stay at West Virginia "for a very, very long time." The moment there was something in it for him -- a pay increase from $1.9 million at West Virginia to a reported $3 million annual salary at Michigan -- Rodriguez shafted his players. The Detroit Free Press asserts that even before Rodriguez announced he was leaving for Michigan, he called Terrelle Pryor, this fall's most sought-after high school player, and urged Pryor to enroll at Michigan rather than at West Virginia. Immediately after there was something in it for him, Rodriguez shafted his former employer.
And this is the coach Michigan wants! Someone whose word is not bond; someone who, if the Free Press account is accurate, actively tried to double-cross his previous school. Wolverines: If Rodriguez is a fiasco at Michigan, don't say you weren't warned. And the history of selfish coaches suggests that fiasco will come calling. Petrino, Saban, Price, Franchione, Fairbanks, Parcells -- which of these guys did really well after walking out on a commitment for self-serving reasons?
Yet every year at this time, NFL and big-college teams throw big money at new coaches who are presented as having miraculous super ability. One reason? Because there is so much money in big-deal football now, and experience teaches that when money is available, money gets thrown. Another reason involves promotion: If the team plays poorly, you can't fire the whole team, but you can fire the coach. Making one single change, at the top, is a practical move for NFL or big-college programs seeking to create excitement regarding the coming season. Modern Fortune 500 corporations seem to overpay CEOs to create excitement, essentially saying to shareholders and potential shareholders: "Wow, we hired a guy who gets $50 million a year, he must be a miraculous super-genius; our share price will go up." By the time you find out he's just another guy sitting in a chair, the shareholders have been fleeced.
NFL and big-college football programs promote their coaching choices as incredibly important because this creates fan enthusiasm about the time that ticket-sales campaigns are gearing up. (The majority of NFL and Division I-A football ticket sales occur in the offseason.) Plus, the coach is the public face of a sports enterprise, the one who deals with the media and makes public appearances. Promoting the public-face person as a magnificent mastermind with incredible top-secret skills is in the team's best interest.
All this means that, for the Illusion of the SuperCoach to work, the public must believe it! Which seems to happen every year about this time, as fans and boosters clap wildly for the arrival of a new coach who just shafted his previous team -- believing, against all evidence, that he is being honest when he says it'll be different this time. Oh, and one more possible explanation for the SuperCoach fad: Sports nuts enjoy the coaching carousel. It gives fans and sports radio hosts something to talk about in the offseason. We're in late December, and the offseason jitters are already starting. The hiring and firing of NFL and Division I-A coaches constitutes a form of entertainment.
? I'm sorry, but I think taking home six and seven figures for a LOSING SEASON will make up for the fact that he (wipes a tear) DIDN'T SAY GOOD BYE TO ME IN PERSON... You're also talking about the same guys that just got fined 10k a piece for showing their support of Mike Vick; a CONVICTED FELON!! 
