The Art of Hiring a Football Coach

The Seattle Times did a great job with this, talking to some PAC 12 ADs about the behind-the-scenes of hiring a coach ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/cougarfootball/2018041576_coaches22.html?prmid=head_main

It's also some great insight as to how names get out there ...

Thought this was telling ...

 

My favorite coaching searches of all-time... (Probably because I didn't have to cover either...). This isn't counting guys who accepted jobs and then had to resign before they coached a single game because they lied on their resume or frequented strip clubs.

Gruden to the Bucs. - Depending on who which story you believe, they had Parcells signed and he backed out. There were a couple others who were on the verge of getting the job and then it came out that they were going to trade picks to San Fran for Mariucci. One of the papers reported that Mariucci was a lock. Then the next day, Gruden got the job.

Saban to Alabama - Rich Rodriguez had told multiple members of the media that he had accepted the job, then backed out. The former South Florida coach and a bunch of other mediocre coaches turned them down, then the PB Post (Greg Bedard) came out of nowhere and reported that Saban was leaving the Dolphins to take an insane contract from Bama. The numbers Bedard reported were so ridiculous that there was no way it could have been true and Saban denied it so many times and every report that came out on ESPN tried to distance itself from the crazy PB report.

Then, every bit of what Bedard had written was 100 percent true. I don't know if I've ever seen a reporter beat up that much over a report that was proven to be so spot on. I know Greg and I was scared shitless for him and I could not have been happier for him when he was right.

 

Chris Sheridan just prepared a libel suit and he doesn't know why.

 

What are you referring to?

 

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/84417/

 

The difference is, when Sheridan wrote that, a lot of people thought he was right.

When Bedard wrote that Saban was going to leave the Dolphins for the Bama job, nobody thought he was right.

 

It was a joke. I'll move along.

Excellent work by Bud Withers, for what it's worth.

 

Thanks for the link, Evil. Good job by Bud Withers. He got some great insights, especially from Moos and both Byrnes. I believe Bud was one of the first -- if not the first -- people reporting Leach was coming to WAZZU.

 

Not to disparage the excellent reporting in this story, but the "art" of hiring a coach seems to consist of being willing to hire a coach quite rightly regarded as carrying more baggage than Norwegian Cruise Lines by everybody else.
If there was a bidding war for Rodriguez, it didn't make the media.

 

Rick Reilly was pilloried over his Jordan comeback piece.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/magazine/life_of_reilly/news/2001/03/13/life_of_reilly/

http://a.espncdn.com/nba/columns/may/1154616.html

 

I'd forgotten about that one... Nice pull...