Thoughts on College Coaches

It seemed like every morning last week, I woke up to find out about a new, shocking college football coaching change. First, I learned that Pete Carroll was leaving USC for what he considered a greater competitive challenge to coach the Seattle Seahawks. Then just a couple of days later, I discovered that Lane Kiffin was leaving Tennessee to go to USC after just a single year with the Vols. Prior to these two bombshells, there was Brian Kelly abandoning his Cincinnati team prior to their bowl game after an undefeated regular season to coach Notre Dame and the revelation that Urban Meyer was resigning as coach of the Florida Gators due to health problems and a desire to spend more time with his family. Then the very next day, he changes his mind after a spirited practice and reconsiders, deciding to take an extended leave of absence instead.

I suppose my overall reaction to these moves was, Christ, are these guys a bunch of greedy, self-centered prima donnas or what? But I hated to be so rash to leap to judgment, so I thought that perhaps I might get a different perspective if I examined each situation a little more closely.

The Pete Carroll case was particularly perplexing to me. Here’s a guy who basically resurrected a formerly proud USC program from the doldrums to one of the elite programs of college football. A guy known to do all kinds of great charity work in the city of Los Angeles with inner city kids and whose MO was to coach not just to win, but for the love of the game. Winning, he preached was just the happy by-product of this philosophy. But after nine years of coaching USC to a record of 97-19 with two national championships, he was suddenly ready to leave after USC had a sub-par season this year and with rumors of NCAA sanctions in the wind. His stated reason for leaving was that he was going to become the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. He just couldn’t resist the challenge of coaching the highest caliber athletes in the world in the NFL.

But he tried this challenge before, didn’t he? As head coach of the New York Jets and the New England Patriots, he’d compiled a so-so record of 33-31. I just can’t help but wonder if he would have made the same decision if USC was coming off a Rose Bowl win or a BCS Championship and if the specter of probation for the program wasn’t looming. Wouldn’t returning the team to a championship contender and nursing them through probation, if it came to that, be challenge enough? I’m always perplexed when successful college coaches leave to go to the NFL. A college coach has the potential to become a legend enshrined in the hearts of his players and his University forever. An NFL coach, no matter how successful, never reaches the same status. Besides that, it rarely works out. Just ask Steve Spurrier or Bobby Petrino.

Then there is the case of Lane Kiffin who must qualify as a prodigy of some sort as he manages to move from one high profile coaching job to another without the benefit of a distinguished record or even a positive endorsement from his former employer. He has won a whopping twelve games in his coaching career for the Oakland Raiders and the Vols combined. Rarely has a coach earned such hatred as Kiffin seems to have a talent of doing. First from Raiders owner Al Davis who lambasted him in a press conference after unceremoniously firing him, calling him a “straight-up liar” and then more recently, from the entirety of Rocky Top nation who appeared ready to tar and feather the man as he slunk out of Knoxville to Southern California with all the grace of a hyena making off with the lion’s leftovers.

In Kiffin’s defense, he, like Kelly, left for what they perceive to be greener pastures. In Kiffin’s case, USC is where he made his start as an assistant under Carroll in 2000. In any other profession, peers and on-lookers alike would have likely praised these two for their ruthless ambition and for rising to the tops of their profession at such a precociously young age. But instead, Kelly and Kiffin come off to the average fan more as glorified mercenaries than men dedicated to fielding winning football teams while also serving as mentors to their players. It seems that a glaring difference of perception exists between the viewpoint of upwardly mobile coaches like Kelly and Kiffin and that of the players and fans of their teams. College players are encouraged to look up to their coach as inspirational leaders who are there not only to help them be the best football players they can become, but also to help them become quality men in the process. A college coach is supposed to exemplify what we find best in the human spirit: a desire to achieve our full potential and to push ourselves past where we believed possible. He is also expected to be the cohesive force that bonds his players together so that the sum of their combined abilities far surpasses their talents as individuals. Instead, players are forced to face the fact that their coaches see them as little more than stepping stones on their way to the ultimate job where they might attain the ultimate glory.

In the case of Brian Kelly, he undoubtedly feels that he paid his dues at Cincinnati where he built the program up from scratch leading them to an undefeated regular season this year. I’m sure that he makes the case that he earned the job at Notre Dame, and no one can take that away from him. But in the eyes of Kelly’s players and Cincinnati fans, he abandoned them just as callously as a deadbeat father might abandon his child. They were forced to face the mighty Florida Gators without him in the first BCS Bowl game the school had ever competed in and were promptly whipped like stepchildren for their trouble. Would Kelly’s presence on the sideline have made any difference? It’s impossible to say and we will never know.

While Kelly’s abrupt departure angered fans and players, his sins seem to be mitigated by the fact that in three seasons, he elevated the program to a level of national prominence, and that he appears to have earned his way to a prestigious coaching job by achieving success at every step as he made his way up the coaching ladder, winning two national championships with Division II Grand Valley State, a conference title with Central Michigan, and two with Cincinnati. He may be a man who appears to be always on the lookout for the next best gig, but at least he has proven he can coach. The same cannot be said of Kiffin whose departure from Tennessee seemed to reek of outright betrayal and hypocrisy. He declared that Tennessee would be singing “Rocky Top” after beating Florida on their own field and preached that Tennessee players, fans, and coaches were all family united for the common goal of returning the program to the height of the college football world. But after a single year, he left them all behind for the sunshine and familiarity of Southern California. Kiffin has the reputation of being a master recruiter, but I have to ask myself: if he was in my living room trying to sell his school to me, would I believe there was any substance to his words? Or would I peg him as little more than a snake oil salesman wearing the colors of the latest sucker foolish enough to hire him?

Speaking of reticent recruits, I’m reminded of Urban Meyer and his sudden announcement that he was going to step down as the coach of the Florida Gators a couple of weeks after their loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship game. He stated he was quitting for health reasons and because of a need to spend more time with his family. The Florida job was all-consuming, he said, and he needed to step away from it before it destroyed him. Then the very next day, after a particularly spirited Florida practice, he unannounced his departure, opting instead for an “extended leave of absence.” While Meyer’s behavior doesn’t seem as appalling as Carrolls, Kelly’s or Kiffin’s, and has not earned the ire of fans or players in the same way, it still smacks of entitlement and narcissism to me. What made him change his mind about quitting just a day later after a good practice? Did the Gators never have quite such a spirited practice before? Did he forget the emotions it brought out in him so quickly? If Florida had beaten Alabama, would Meyer have made the same decision? Did a single loss cause Meyer’s stack of cards to come tumbling down to the point where he felt the need to resign? Maybe I’m too cynical, but I can’t help but think so. Guess what, coach? As much as you’d like to, you just can’t win’em all and losing one is not grounds to have a heart attack and quit.

I can’t help but think that SEC rivals will jump on Meyer’s near resignation like a pack of wolves. ‘Son, I’d think long and hard before going to Florida,’ they will say to potential recruits. ‘Their coach has a weak heart and is likely to walk way at any moment. Who knows if he’ll ever even come back from his “extended leave of absence” for that matter?’

It seems that Meyer’s premature announcement could cause recruits to be mighty sheepish about putting their careers on the line under his tutelage.

As a Georgia Bulldog fan, I have to hope these coaching shenanigans of two of the team’s arch-rivals is a positive harbinger. As far as I know, Coach Mark Richt is not going to slink off to coach some other school for a little more money, and he’s not letting the disappointment of a sub-par season cause him to develop heart problems and quit. He’s content in his position and dedicated to making the Bulldogs a winner…

Isn’t he…?

Review of Up in the Air

Up in the Air is a movie about a man who flies around the country telling people they’re fired. He does the dirty work for employers who are too cowardly to do the deed themselves. But he tries to do this in the most humane way possible, attempting to convince the terminated that their firing represents an opportunity rather than financial ruin. He loves his job because he loves to be up in the air. Being up in the air prevents him from having to deal with all the obligations and encumbering relationships most of us are subject to. He even has a side gig as a motivational speaker in which he encourages people to keep all their baggage in life including their personal relationships to a bare minimum. He says people will be happier if they can carry all they need in a single backpack. But this man, Ryan Bingham, played by the immaculately sharp and ultra-slick George Clooney, discovers in the course of the film that his life philosophy is flawed.

Everything in Bingham’s life is just as he wants it to be until two unexpected events occur. First, he meets a woman, fittingly, at a hotel bar. Her name is Alex Goras, played by Vera Farmiga. She and Ryan appear to be perfectly kindred spirits. She tells him as much when she memorably comments that she is the same as him, except with a vagina. They hit it off winningly and their on-screen chemistry is something to behold. As much as he wants to maintain a casual relationship with Alex, a part of him wants something real for a change.

The second event is spurred by the appearance by a young, ambitious hotshot fresh out of Cornell. She is Natalie Keener played by Anna Kendrick. Keener is new to the company and appears to have properly impressed Bingham’s boss, the amoral Craig Gregory, played by Jason Bateman. Keener has a bright idea to save the company money on travel. She suggests a plan of informing people about the news of their termination of employment via video conference.

It is ironic that Bingham, a man who values isolation and impersonal relationships more than most, appears to be the one who most readily sees the flaw in delivering such personal and life-altering news in such an unfeeling manner. But of course he also is out to save his own skin. He doesn't want to be grounded, reduced to existing in his Spartan one-bedroom apartment. To prevent this from happening, Bingham suggests to his boss that he should take Keener on the road with him so she can see how her ideas might play out in reality rather than theory.

In the course of their travels, Keener is also forced to re-evaluate her own ideas about life when her boyfriend, the one she’d followed to God-forsaken Omaha, breaks up with her via text message. The irony of being broken up with in such a callous manner compared to her own proposed method of delivering equally devastating news to others is not lost on her. Keener appears to become human after this experience and all three of the principle characters bond. In a pivotal scene, Keener lectures Bingham about the shallowness of his character and berates him for not giving Alex a chance to have a real relationship with him. Bingham appears to heed her words when he invites Alex to join him to his sister’s wedding.

On the day of the ceremony, Bingham is thrust into the uncomfortable and ironic position of attempting to convince his potential brother-in-law to go through with the marriage when he gets a case of cold feet on his wedding day. “Everyone needs a wing man,” Bingham declares, and he appears to mean it as much for himself as the man he is talking to.

It appears that Bingham’s moral transformation completes itself when he steps up to speak at his “backpack seminar” only to hear his words ringing depressingly false to his own ears. He catches a plane to Chicago to pursue Alex in what appears to be a scene straight out of Jerry Maguire.

The finale of the movie is as honest and uncompromising as the film itself.


The reactions of people to the news that they have been terminated struck me as very realistic and heart wrenching as it should have been, considering many of them were non-actors recounting their real experience on hearing this hateful news. The soundtrack was also very cool and smooth, contributing to the general feel of the movie.

The film was directed by Jason Reitman who also directed Thank You for Smoking and Juno. Having seen these movies, it’s easy to spot some common themes that Reitman is apparently interested in. He likes to explore the characters of people who should be unlikable and making us root for them. In this film, he accomplishes this task with great success.

Although the movie’s subject matter is depressing, I left it feeling uplifted. The movie is so well done and honest that it would be impossible to have done otherwise. It also seems to make a statement about human existence in general. What ultimately makes our lives meaningful, it seems to say, are the relationships we form with other people. Without them, we are just up in the air.