Earlier this week, BJD95 told me that he had quit looking for insights into the coaching search from media sources because they knew absolutely nothing. In the unlikely event that anyone questions BJD’s conclusion, Ed Hardin manages to remove all doubt.
I would discuss/dissect Hardin’s piece, but there isn’t anything there worth discussing. Ed manages to contradict his title, “N.C. State’s coach search not so secret any longer†in just a few paragraphs when he admits that his best State source knows nothing. So in the absence of facts, he then regurgitates media and message board speculation with a few comments about State’s last search thrown in for good measure. All in all, a highly forgettable “commentaryâ€.
The absence of hard data shouldn’t be an excuse for poor journalism or for rampant stupidity. It should still be possible to intelligently discuss potential coaches, even if Debbie Yow never considers that particular coach. BTW, endless repetition of your favorite coaches’ resume doesn’t qualify as intelligent conversation.
So rather than rehash the resume of potential coaches, I thought that we should take a big picture view of Debbie Yow’s job. By big picture, I don’t mean “Hire Shaka Smart NOW!!!!!â€. I mean from a general perspective, what do I expect from Debbie Yow in this coaching search?
If your answer is HIRE A BIG-NAME COACH…
Then turn in your password on the way out and wait on Hardin to retire. You could take over for him and no one would ever notice the difference.
If your answer is HIRE A GOOD COACH, then you have moved above the Hardin Level (analogous to Boomer’s Mendoza Line), but we’re still not on the same page. Every AD at every college and every general manager of any professional team WANTS to hire a good coach. However, this simply isn’t as easy as the average fan makes it out to be. Even Ron Wellman gets a clunker now and then.
Along with all of the mother-hood comments about professionalism, fund raising, and avoiding public ridicule like the last BB coaching search, Yow’s real job is to hire a coach with a resume good enough to indicate that he COULD be successful at State. THEN her job switches to annual evaluations, the removal of ineffective coaches, and the rewarding of successful coaches. None of these tasks are necessarily simple, but her salary pretty much eliminates the possibility of an easy job and a gentle glide into retirement.
I always point to UVa’s hiring of Pete Gillen as a good coaching search that went wrong. Based on Gillen’s resume, there was every reason for UVa fans to hope for a return to the high-water marks reached by Terry Holland. But in the final analysis, a local (to me) sports radio host summarized the Gillen era with “The only thing that Pete Gillen ever succeeded at in C’ville was to make the Jeff Jones era look good.â€
So Debbie’s first job is to hire a coach that has been successful at his current job, whether that current job is at a BCS school or a mid-major. Hopefully, her next job is to keep a successful coach happy without making a contract mistake like GT made with Hewitt or UVa made with Gillen. But if the next coach falls short, THEN her job will be to remove him with the same professionalism that we saw with Sidney.
