[NU Sports] Change the coaches?

[Jeff Beamsley]

Sorry for picking on you again, but what is so bad about a coach doing great
here and getting hired away?  Isn't that what RW has said his goal is for
all of his assistants?  

NU is not at the top of the coaching food chain.  I think most all of us are
OK with that because we think that there is more to life than football.

Anyone who does well here (including RW) is going to become the subject of
rumors for open positions at higher football-profile schools REGARDLESS of
what they are getting paid here and REGARDLESS of past statements of
loyalty.  Whether they take advantage of those opportunities depends on how
they see themselves.  

For any school lower in the food chain, the only reliable way to prevent
your coach from getting offers is to have consistently mediocre teams, and
even in those circumstances the ambitious coaches will find a way to promote
themselves.  

So our choices are to pick a coach who thinks that NU is the best that they
can do, and hope that continuity translates into success - OR - pick a coach
who is ambitious and does his best to build a program which reflects that
ambition.  

I personally would prefer to have a coach who wants to be the best, deal
with the reality that they may some day move on, and hold them accountable
when they don't perform.  That appears to be Stanford's philosophy.  In
other words, I would be willing to trade a handful of Motor City Bowls for
the occasional Rose Bowl.  I also realize that this is a personal opinion
and you can make a strong argument that coaching consistency will ultimately
result in consistent winning.  

As far as RW is concerned, I don't know what his personal ambitions are, but
if he is able to put together another winning season next year, we'll
probably find out.  I think we are all kidding ourselves, however, to think
that he couldn't be hired away by someone else.  If that proves to be the
case, it does point out that there are risks to the slow and steady approach
too.  

Jeff


-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Hakirsch at aol.com
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 1:11 AM
To: sjtruog at yahoo.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Change the coaches?

In a message dated 11/17/2005 10:05:30 PM Pacific Standard Time,
sjtruog at yahoo.com writes:

> And as we see, Stanford either gets a coach who leaves in a few years 
> for a better job or one who gets dumped in a few years.
> 

Yep--read Bill Walsh, Dennis Green, Ty Willingham-

Adding credence to my argument that if the coach really gets to be top notch

at a school like  NU or Stanford (or similar) he will likely leave because 
either he doesn't see greatness opportunity or those institutions won't pay
huge 
$ to keep them

Harry
_______________________________________________
nwu-sports site list
nwu-sports at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports