College coaching, the business world and professorialship

Here's a few ruminations...

College coaching is a very unique position of employment, possibly a one-of-its-kind situation. It's remarkable how this profession has way many more similarities to the business world than it does to academia. This at an educational institution, a place dedicated to learning and scholarship.

By all that, we mean a coach's tenure is directly based upon winning. Translated to business, that means solid and growing sales, healthy profits, satisfied primary stockholders. The onus is to be victorious in far more games than ones lost because winning produces the required rock solid balance sheet.

Whereas in comparison, a professor in the university can gain tenure after a few years in the classroom independent of the outcome of his/her interactions with students Being in the classroom is a laissez faire situation, a show-up-if-you-want-to with the measure of learning totally up to the individual student. No positive end results are necessary or required.

Also, a college coach's staying power is solely based on the successful actions of 18-21 year olds, a demographic not generally known for stability (if any is). But to be fair, these student-athletes are hand-picked and not assigned to a coach by some other entity.

Additionally, in the WHAT ELSE IS NEW DEPARTMENT: some of the coaching brethren cheat, big time for some, around the edges for others. Some abstain from this practice altogether -- this despite doing so may add to the length of their contract if not caught.

Also, the wide disparity in basketball budgets (say SEC teams versus those in the Big West) already creates substantial degrees of difficulty for most mid and lower level most coaching staffs (smaller businesses) and going up against a big time coach (goliath corporations) who can spend profligately and who can also more generously view rules and regulations as a 'impediment' to be worked around.

Now some coaches simply work the angles, a commonplace tactic in the spheres of the business world. And make no mistake, college sports is a business, built around dollars and cents. But this isn't any sort of lawbreaking -- compare it to Microsoft 'leaning' on other companies for bundling Bill Gates' products in with theirs to the exclusion of Microsoft's competitors. It's the implied but unspoken admonition.

Within the profession, some coaches also will have no qualms about 'commitments' to his or her roster -- it's a produce or be gone implication much practiced in big business. We won't names names here -- the coaches are fairly well known to most fans. Many believe this is unsupportable behavior but keep this in mind: coaches get raises and extensions for winning, NOT for graduating players or necessarily doing the right thing. If you are inclined to challenge this supposition we ask you to provide the name of one coach who was let go based on the academics deficiencies of his players. Alternately, was there ever a college coach hired solely because his previous players graduated? We also inquire was there ever a history professor asked to depart because the history majors at a certain school were not graduating at an acceptable level?

Another peculiar aspect to the coaching profession is that some coaches will still recruit kids who have agreed to sign with another school/coach. Now some won't, they just congratulate a kid and move on to other recruiting targets but just recently we saw a note that so-and-so verbaled to school X although school Y and school Z were going to continue pursuing the kid. Again, it's a business world here-we-come similarity. Nabbing new and seasoned talent from competitors is nothing new to business.

Then there are the package deals in college athletics. These are situations where head coach A hires so-and-so as an assistant coach (however unqualified to be an assistant so-and-so may be or even if so-and-so lacks a college degree) because the newly minted assistant coach can 'deliver' a top player to the head coach. But what happens if that new assistant fails to deliver the top player or the top player leaves for the NBA after a season or two? Then, it's a case of the head coach asking the assistant what-have-you-done-for-me-lately? The assistant better have a new kid or kids to deliver. Label this business world redux. As DickieV might say, "It's all in the present and future, baby."

Plus, there is the scenario of a new school president or new athletic director taking over at a school. Professors typically have no worries when a new Dean comes aboard but coaches have to be concerned about leaving any opening (say a losing season) that could be parlayed into his or her departure. ADs typically and understandably desire to have their own selections in the highest level coaching positions (football and basketball). Consider that Washington's Ty Willingham is in the midst of another losing season and with a new AD (one who didn't hire him) in place, well, the ax is being sharpened. Call this one definitely much more similar to the world of business than academia.

And what about fate (for lack of a better term)? Sometimes, one play -- a fumble, an interception, a missed free throw or an untimely injury can 'ruin' a season -- did the coach drop the ball, throw the ball, miss an open shot or do anything to hurt his player? Of course not. But the responsibility is placed somewhere and that is usually with the head coach. In comparison, a billion dollar deal that inexplicably falls through because of unforseeable reasons -- that's going to take place in business and certainly not academia.

So should college coaches in the most prominent sports actually be titled CEOs instead? Isn't Coach K already dubbed that?