Head Coach Tenure

71YellowJacket

71YellowJacket

Damn Good Rat
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In the 50’s-70s, to my memory, college coaches had strong ties to the schools they represented. The successful ones, stayed pretty much in place for most if not all their career. Jordan, Bryant, Dodd come to mind. Yes, I know Bryant was at Texas A&M for a brief but infamous period as a new head coach. It seems to me looking back that the average tenure could be measured in decades and the compensation was very small by today s standards. I seem to recall Coach Dodd never made more than $35,000/year and never had a contract.

I understand all that’s changed; coaches owe their loyalty to the profession first and foremost. Tenures are much shorter and compensation is much, much higher.

I wonder what the average tenure is in Div I-A today for head coaches; less than 5 years?

If Gailey stays and the program is successful, how long should we expect him to remain here?

At the compensation levels a coach makes today, how much patience should we have? Let’s say we go 8-3 next year and Florida or another deeper pocket university comes along and say Chan come on over for double the pay. Would we be surprised if he left like Ross did? Would we be surprised if he left for a lateral move back to the NFL if his record was 6-5?

Would we think it was all worthwhile; even if we never beat UGA?

I’m inclined to think next time around if we want a longer-term coach we need to take a chance on a younger man who is waiting for his first shot at a HC position in Div I-A, like UGA did. Unless the program is in compete disarray.

Then taking an older, albeit more experienced coach, probably makes more sense in a situation like Ross inherited but we really shouldn’t expect the good ones to stay long afterwards.

How long should we expect to keep them if they do a poor job? I guess that’s the issue we are all grappling with.

Anyone got a crystal ball?
 
Bryant was also HC at Kentucky before A&M, but your point remains.

Successful coaches at major schools did not move around, but they still don't: Bowden, Dooley; all those Miami coaches went to the pros, not to other schools, as did Spurrier. Osborne stuck around, Joe Pa has. How long has the "tangerine with ears" been at Tennessee?
 
Originally posted by 71Bee:

I understand all that’s changed; coaches owe their loyalty to the profession first and foremost. Tenures are much shorter and compensation is much, much higher.

If Gailey stays and the program is successful, how long should we expect him to remain here?

At the compensation levels a coach makes today, how much patience should we have? Let’s say we go 8-3 next year and Florida or another deeper pocket university comes along and say Chan come on over for double the pay. Would we be surprised if he left like Ross did? Would we be surprised if he left for a lateral move back to the NFL if his record was 6-5?

I’m inclined to think next time around if we want a longer-term coach we need to take a chance on a younger man who is waiting for his first shot at a HC position in Div I-A, like UGA did. Unless the program is in compete disarray.

Then taking an older, albeit more experienced coach, probably makes more sense in a situation like Ross inherited but we really shouldn’t expect the good ones to stay long afterwards.

How long should we expect to keep them if they do a poor job? I guess that’s the issue we are all grappling with.

Anyone got a crystal ball?
Click to expand...
<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Couple of points. First, I think that the patience level or grace period should be about 2-3 yrs. for a program that was in good standing (like ours) and maybe another season or so for programs in complete disaray, say GT in '94.

As far as Chan staying, who knows? Coaching by nature is a vagabond profession. I think that he would leave GT for an NFL job, not a college one (unless next season is a disaster in which he would resign).

On Ross, he wanted to be an NFL head coach, but what pushed him there was the admin. @ GT as well as some of the fans. Ross simply wanted to coach and fans wanted him to do more "public" appearances like lunches, dinners, golf, etc. He wore down and got a good opportunity and was gone.

As far as a younger coach, I think that it would be a risk worth taking if we go the coordinator route for the next hire (fyi, I hope that Chan is able to prove us wrong and right the ship). Keep in mind though, that a younger coach may view the GT job as a stepping stone. As much as we as fans love GT, the reality for coaches is that it is a job. If a (perceived)better opportunity comes along, they take it, ala O'leary.

I am ramblin' a bit here, but I think our patience level should be in direct proportion to the programs' status that was inherited and the amount of $$$ being paid. Given that, I think we should see improvement next year or a committee should be formed to see who may be avail. and interested.
 
I guess I'm coming to the conclusion that no matter what we pay a Head Coach, a school of our size isn't going to retain a professional, high caliber vagabond.

Either they will leave for the 100,000 fan stadium schools or the NFL. Either way, we won't keep them long.

The alternative is a coach looking for an easy chair and gives us just enough to hold on to him; 7-5, 6-6, with an occasional 8-3 (hopefully). Wins over Georgia will become rare indeed.

The only alternative I see to this scenario, is finding a Head Coach who has his future in front of him and bleeds white and gold. Thought we had that with Curry.

I didn't post this looking for names, just wanted to bounce off the ideas...
 
I think it's a crap shoot. All you can do is the best you can at a moment in time w/o worrying too much about what happens farther down the road. If you try to lock a young coach into a contract with a big buyout you either don't get him or he just negotiates it into his new deal when he's ready to leave. An older more established coach who is ready to settle down wouldn't get much play if he was 8-3 or so every year. But even if he did have that one lighting in a bottle year ala Ross in '90 his name is going to come up for bigger things.

That's why I try not to worry much about coaches leaving. If we could find a guy who has what it takes and loves Tech, Robinson? or somebody they might pass on a "bigger" opportunity. But like you say, who would have expected Curry to leave?
 
Tenure at GT? Heisman, Alexander, Dodd stayed around a long time with little pay. There is one common thread among the three, they were successful. Dodd would not even leave Tech to return to Tennessee.

Why did Curry go to Alabama since he was an ex-football player at Tech? He was not very successful at Tech and viewed Alabama as a place to be successful due to their recruiting.

Ross was only semi-successful at Tech and was not really comfortable at Tech.

O'Leary was only successful at Tech while Friegden was here and, most likely, thought he had ridden the horse as far as it would go. I am sure he figured he would be more successful at Notre Dame with their advantage in recruiting.

If Gailey were to be highly successful at GT in the next few years, I believe he will stay a long time. If he is not successful, he will leave one way or the other.

Someone like Jimmy Robinson would coach at Tech forever if he was successful here. To me tenure has more to do with being successful at a school and being comfortable there also.

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I think there is a lot of truth to what you say ahsoisee, but I also think it's a different world than inthe days of Dodd, et al. Tech was a much bigger fish in those days, at least from what I can tell, and I'm not sure the money was there no matter where you coached. There was also more of an expectation that someone did a job for years and years and then retired from the same company. Today that just isn't true in coaching or real life.
 
NCJacket,

I think I'm coming around to your thinking on this ( I better recheck my logic circuits).

Coaching and Management are much alike today, transient professions. Corporations/schools don't have the same loyalties to the staff and it cuts the other way too.

Picking the right one is a crapshoot, but (you picked an excellent analogy), it's a game where a smart player can shave the odds a bit in his favor.

Unless we flush totally in the next year or two, I would hope we would take a real close look at a candidate with more of his career in front of him, and ideally one with some Tech ties.
 
NCJacket, your assumptions are truly valid, but not inclusive. I still believe there are those in the world and the coaching profession that are extremely loyal in all of their actions in life.

As you stated, the $$$$ will tempt many a coach to leave his own school for another, but there would be the few that it would not affect. I really believe Jimmy Robinson, A kim King (who would not be a candidate, just an example, etc. would be contented to stay at their schools.

I am convinced, Braine and the committee contacted Friegden after GOL left, just as a courtesy call. I am sure both Tech and Friegden knew there was no way he would leave Maryland. I doubt he will ever leave Maryland on his own.

If Groh is successful at Virginia, I doubt he will ever leave that school because it is his own and he feels comfortable there. If he is successful, Virginia will not let him go.

Overall your assumption is correct, but not inclusive.

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Bear Bryant coached at Maryland, then Kentucky where he built the best football teams that Kentucky ever had. He had a loaded KY. team led by Babe Parelli that beat then number one Oklahoma in the sugar bowl. Then he went to Texas A@M and built another power before coming to Alabammer. He spent close to half his career at the first three jobs before he came home to what Bear called ALMA MAMA. Think about this-Ears Whitworth the coach at Alabama had let the team slide so far down that Bama only won one game each of the last two seasons before the Bear
arrived but he took those rag tag players and had a winning season the first year back. We all know what happened after he got his own player in place.
 
NCJacket, I could be wrong, but I had the feeling Friegden was just letting Maryland know he was being courted by other schools just to keep them on their toes and make them give him a more secure long-term contract.

A lot of coaches do the same thing when many are not even contemplating moving to another job.

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ahsoisee I agree about the Fridge. I just wonder what he would have done if they hadn't sweetened the deal?
 
900 grand a year would be pretty damn motivating to a lot of guys. Brand loyalty is a thing of the past. The only "shirts" liable to stick around for tenure are guys like the ADs. Gailey may stay though. He seems like he might have that knd of character. Similar to when Cremins left for USC but on reflection decided he just couldn't do it. A man of character has to live with himself everyday.
 
ahsoisee I agree that there are always exceptions, but wonder what would have happened if MD had not stepped up when Fridge started getting calls last year? Not saying they had to match offers, but they had to at least make changes to his package.

You may be right about Jimmy Robinson, but I would also bet that he wouldn't stay long if he felt his deal wasn't at least competitive in the market. Course I could easily be wrong.

Hopefully CG gets things straigtened out next year and we don't have to wonder about this until he retires.
 
This is one area where I do have some expertise.

The compensation package should always be competitive, if you want the coach to stay...
This is almost always doable for a school our size.

However, the full package is another matter; the non-monetary elements that can weigh heavily on the decision to come or go: how large/new a stadium, how supportive is the alumni base, location, reputation of the program and school, ease of recruitment, what's the chemistry within the AA and with the school administration, etc.
 
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