Power Fuels the Charge to Fire College Coaches

A very popular phrase recently is that with great power comes great responsibility.  No matter who accepts this statement, Georgia Tech Football Coach Chan Gailey and dozens of other coaches just like him are very glad that it has so much validity.  Gailey in his fourth season as the head man of the Yellow Jackets just received a new contract that is scheduled to keep him in Atlanta until 2010.  This came at the chagrin of a vocal segment of Tech fans that see Gailey’s performance as mediocre at best.  If news of the contract had them buzzing, they must have stung the next passerby when Athletic Director Dave Braine announced the reason for the new deal.  “Chan Gailey continues to be successful at a school that has an average SAT score well over 1300 and continues to get higher,” Gailey said. “Our athletes continue to compete and do well in the classroom, and they compete in one of the strongest football conferences in the country.”  He later added “I want to reiterate that he continues to recruit well in a situation that is very difficult.”  

Okay, thanks Dave, we got the point.  Redundant but correctly stated.  Gailey is achieving most of what his power is allowing him to.  It is silly to expect a football program with Tech’s academic standards, especially considering their competition level, to be a perennial ten win team.  When was the last time the Northwestern and Vanderbilt jobs were considered to be pressure cookers for a coach?  On top of the inherent problems at Tech, Gailey must now contend with scholarship reductions thanks to NCAA sanctions.  How many coaches could do a better job than Gailey?  How many would want to?  Gailey is a quality coach.   He proved that during his time in the NFL when he made Kordell Stewart and Dave Wannstedt look good.  

His predecessor, the much beloved George O’Leary, only had one ten win season in what Tech fans look at as the good old days.  The fact that eight and nine wins a year are worth bragging about speaks volume about the potential (or lack thereof) of the Yellow Jacket football program.  O’Leary knew this.  He gladly accepted a job at one of college football most powerful programs, Notre Dame.  Though due to a resume discrepancy, he would never coach a game for the Irish.  So Notre Dame eventually turned to Tyrone Willingham.  Willingham was celebrated for the 44-36-1 record (including a Pac-10 Championship) he compiled at Stanford.  His 21-15 record with two bowl appearances in three years at Notre Dame got him fired.  Why?  Notre Dame is a difficult job, right?  Sure Notre Dame has high academic standards and a tough schedule.  They also have a national following and the ability to recruit good players in every state in the country.  They have power, power to improve their situation.  That is what separates them from your Stanford’s, and Georgia Tech’s of the world.  That is also why their expectations are higher.  

In collegiate athletics having the power to be the best is everything.   Coaches who are in a position of power are scrutinized more severely than coaches who are not.  This can even be seen in college basketball, a sport that has more teams capable of winning big because of the 13 scholarship limit per team.  In the 2000-01 season, two new coaches were garnering headlines in the ACC.  They were Paul Hewitt of Georgia Tech and Matt Doherty of North Carolina.  Hewitt led Tech to a .500 conference record and NCAA Tournament birth when not much was expected from the Yellow Jackets.  Doherty’s Tar Heels finished tied with Duke for most conference wins and won 26 games overall.  

The next season, both coaches finished with losing records.  Year three both programs rebounded slightly to earn bids to the N.I.T.  Year four, Hewitt took his now seasoned Yellow Jacket team to the NCAA Championship Game; while Doherty watched his successor Roy Williams receive a hero’s welcome in Chapel Hill.  Never mind Doherty’s final Tar Heel team featured three talented freshmen.  Never mind one of those freshmen, Sean May, only played in eleven games that season.  North Carolina has enough power not to have to suffer through losing seasons and N.I.T. bids.  As Williams showed this past season, they are capable of much more.  On the other hand Georgia Tech is living up to their potential with one Final Four appearance per decade.  The bottom line in collegiate athletics is that those who can win big, should.  For those who can not, being respectable is just fine.