COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

With SEC Media Days underway it can be said that the 2010 college football season is now underway and for the 3 rd year in a row, there really wasn’t any offseason to speak of.  We know that college football coaches have been going at it pretty hard for 11 months a year for a long time now, but now the media that cover the game are working their butts off year around also. 

As we always say:  Nothing wrong with working your butt off!

 

SEC Media Days

 

The SEC Media Days is truly a unique event and the passion of SEC football fans and the amount of media that cover the game in that part of the country are really unmatched anywhere else in the game and to that we say Bravo! to SEC fans!  The Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover is our preferred place to stay when attending Alabama football games, because it is a great place to stay with a lot to do in the immediate vicinity and it is only a short jaunt down to Tuscaloosa on gameday and then back that night.  As always when there is something big going on in the game of college football, there is a CHS member nearby and we have one of our folks working quietly in the background at the Wynfrey and picking up lots of interesting info between trips to the bar and pool!  If you see someone drinking Anchor Steam Beer at the bar there you might be just be able to meet our CHS member on the scene!

 

Pat Haden new USC AD

 

It wasn’t a big surprise to us that USC moved to hire Pat Haden as the new AD for the Trojans, because there have been rumors flying around LA on a lot of things relative to Southern Cal since the NCAA put the hammer down on the USC athletic department.  We have run into Pat Haden a number of times over the years and of course Pat’s playing career with USC and the Los Angeles Rams is etched in our collective memories of all of us here at CHS.  As many people know, Pat Haden was a Rhoades Scholar and he spent a year at Oxford University before he played in the NFL.  We here at Coaches Hot Seat have worked with 15 to 20 Rhoades scholars during our working lives and our impression of these Rhoades folks is that they are very smart people but that some of them don’t have a lot of common sense.  Pat Haden has both high intelligence and common sense which has served him very well during his playing, business and broadcast careers and Haden will need both to deal with the plethora of problems now facing him at USC.

Overall we have a very positive view of Pat Haden and he certainly has carried on very successfully in life after his NFL career in both his business dealings and in his broadcast career.  We have thought in recent years that on the NBC Notre Dame football game broadcasts that Pat was either being muzzled (by someone at NBC) or that he was not being completely honest about what he really thought about the Notre Dame football team and its head coach(s).  As all of us here at CHS remember, Pat Haden was very aggressive and straight-forward with his color commentary comments when he was working for CBS with Ara Parseghian and Brent Musburger and later with Jim Nantz which really has made us wonder about his time at NBC.  Whether Haden was muzzled by NBC or he just didn’t want to rock the boat that comes with a TV network broadcasting the games of only one school, we noticed a big difference between Pat Haden pre-NBC Notre Dame football telecasts and his work at NBC covering the Irish games.  We have had the opportunity a few times in the last few years to ask Haden about that difference, but never quite in a place where we could do it and not be escorted out of the event/party by security, but it would be Damn interesting if one could get Haden out to dinner and see what he would say about his work covering Notre Dame at NBC….not that Pat would have told us or anyone else or that he will say anything controversial now that he is at USC!

As for Pat Haden being hired as the new USC AD we are of the opinion that Haden has a chance to right the ship at USC and to get control of some of the things that got out of control in recent years in Trojan-Land.  If there is one thing that we would be concerned about with Pat Haden is that Pat needs to make sure that he learns how to say “NO” even to people that he has known as friends and associates for years now.  Being a great athletic director is about a lot of things, but being able to say “No” at times and making sure that clear and definable goals for achievement and behavior are set for the coaches and employees of the athletic department is paramount for a winning athletic department.  The successful athletic director walks a very fine line between holding his coaches accountable and making sure that the coaches know that they have all the support he/she can possibly give them to achieve the goals set for their sports team.  At far too many college athletic departments the specific goals for the athletic teams (wins/losses, graduation rates, student-athlete behavior) is not spelled out clearly enough and the coaches far too often end up wondering if they are meeting expectations because the goals have not been spelled our clearly enough.  Holding coaches accountable for both on and off the field behavior is something Pat Haden has never done in his life and maintaining the important AD/coach relationship, especially with the USC football and basketball coaches will determine Pat’s ultimate success with the Trojans.

As to the other side of the AD business, the fans, alums and boosters at USC, Haden is widely connected across Los Angeles and around the country with USC folks and that should help Pat keep the dollars flowing that have flooded USC athletics in recent years.  Our USC friends are right now extremely disappointed with the departure of Pete Carroll, the hiring of Lane Kiffin, the revelations and penalties delivered by the NCAA and the general arrogant approach taken by many in the USC athletic department (and USC administration) in recent years.  Pat Haden does not have to kiss the asses of the USC fans, alumni and boosters he just needs to make sure that the USC athletic department returns their calls and works with people that want to support USC and its athletic department, because in recent years we have heard an earful from USC folks that they have often felt like they weren’t appreciated by the people in Heritage Hall.  USC has an incredibly strong alumni base that extends from one end of the United States to the other and they want to support their school and sports teams and Haden needs to make sure his athletic department employees find ways for them to do just that.

 

We believe that the hiring of Pat Haden is a positive move for USC and our only recommendation to Pat is that he needs to keep a laser beam focus on getting the USC athletic department into full compliance with the NCAA, making sure all of the USC coaches know completely what is expected of them and their student-athletes both on and off the field, and serving the ultimate customers of USC, which are the fans, alumni and boosters that are the people that pay a lot of the bills for USC athletics.  Our USC friends that have been concerned with things at Heritage Hall for years now and have been apoplectic since Pete Carroll left, Lane Kiffin was hired and the NCAA dropped the hammer on the Trojans are breathing a little easier today, but they are also expecting Pat Haden to step up to the plate and run the USC athletic department in a strong, straight-forward and ethical way.

We will keep readers of this blog updated on what we are hearing from out USC friends as thing develop at Heritage Hall in the coming months and years……Yes, this is going to be a very interesting time at USC (see below on Lane Kiffin).

 

Agents and College Student-Athletes

There is not a lot we can add to what several head football coaches have said in recent days when it comes to agents contacting and trying to influence college student-athletes, because the coaches are on the front-lines of trying keep these agents away from their student-athletes and teams.  20+ years ago a few of us here at Coaches Hot Seat were around college athletes that ended up being high draft picks in the NFL and NBA and those athletes head coaches were incredibly strict and straight-forward with them about the consequences of interacting with agents.  Two members of CHS remember well playing pick-up basketball games in the summers on a university campus in the Los Angeles area with future NBA players and there were always agents in attendance at those games and it seems like nothing has changed in those 20 years.  Yes, agents are always around when there is money to be made and that means coaches need to incredibly vigilant as it pertains to agents and their desire to make $$$$$$ off of college athletes.

One incident remembered by a CHS member from 20+ years ago that stands out was an agent approaching one of the for-sure future NBA players during a break in the pick-up basketball game with future NBA player saying to the agent before he could even hand over a business card or start his spiel:

“Don’t even try.  I talk to you and my playing career at “X” is over so just get away from me.”

Later when asked about this future NBA player’s comment the future NBA player said that his coach had made it very clear that “ANY dealings with an agent” including even talking to an agent would be get the player in trouble and put at risk his playing time, membership on the team and status at the school. 

The CHS member does also remember that at those pick-up basketball games that there seemed to always be a member of the school’s athletic department in attendance who was well known to the guys, both student-athletes and just members of the general public that played in the games.  It never dawned on the CHS member until years later that maybe the athletic department person was keeping an eye on things around that pick-up games and also in local bars and restaurants that the student-athletes frequented, because the CHS member remembers having drinks with this fellow many times at the just off-campus bars.  It never hurts to have eyes on things and having people look into what student-athletes are up to in their time away from school and practice/games and from the sound of things the folks at USC are about to put down some markers for their athletes that will have them on notice 24 hours a day and from our perspective that approach is long overdue in college athletics. 

As for the NFL and collegiate athletics/NCAA getting together on finding a way to punish agents that cross the line with student-athletes, if the professional leagues are willing to come up with some rules that will punish agents that don’t follow the rules with college athletes then more the power to everyone willing to go with that approach.  From our prospective though, college coaches need to really amp up not only the counseling of student-athletes about the problems and dangers that come with interacting with agents, but also make it very clear to all the athletes that any contact with agents or their representatives will be dealt with severely and WILL impact their membership on their sports team and even continued attendance at the school as a member of the athletic department and team.

The Rule on Agents at College Athletic Departments should be very simple: 

You, the student-athlete, interacts with an agent or his representative then YOU ARE DONE!

….and the coaches and athletic departments need to back that up that YOU ARE DONE by tossing any student-athlete that is involved with an agent off the team immediately and out of the school if possible.  If schools and athletic departments will just hold their student-athletes accountable and make it clear that there will be ZERO TOLERANCE for any involvement with agents this mess of Agents and College Athletes will be cleaned up because student-athletes will know they will no longer be allowed to cross the line without getting severe punishment.

 

 

Analysis of New 2010 Head Coaching Hires

Unlike in past years when analyzing the new head coaching hires we are not going to rank the new college head coaches from 1 to last on best and worst hires, but instead we are going to this year put the new head coaches into categories.

The 4 Categories will be:

Home Run Hire!  We are expecting great things from these new head coaches.

Solid Hire.  A solid coaching hire by the school and we expect the coach to win consistently and build a strong program at the school.

Mediocre or Unknown hire.  We either think this hire is mediocre or we don’t know enough about this coach to have a strong opinion either way.

What the Hell were they thinking?  We have no idea what these people were thinking when they hired this new head coach.  In other words, a disastrous hire!

Counting Bobby Johnson’s recent departure from Vanderbilt, there were 23 coaching changes for the 2010 college football season and we start today working from the bottom up with the coach that falls into the category….

What the Hell were they thinking?  We have no idea what these people were thinking when they hired this new head coach.  In other words, a disastrous hire!

 

USC

Lane Kiffin for Pete Carroll – There are certain things in US history where an event is so shocking that you will never forget where you were at when you first heard the news, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, the Berlin Wall coming down, 9/11, etc…, but for many of us here at Coaches Hot Seat the word that Lane Kiffin was being hired by USC to replace Pete Carroll certainly ranks right up there with the more shocking stories that we have heard in our lives.  One member of CHS was in Santa Monica on business and having dinner with an USC alum when their Blackberry’s started buzzing with the message that Kiffin was about to be hired by USC.  The CHS member recalls that the USC alum picked up his Blackberry, saw the story that Kiffin was to be the new head coach at USC and then promptly excused himself to go to the bathroom (To throw up?  The CHS member never got the full story, but he did report that when the USC alum got back to the table he had the waiter bring a “Maker’s Mark neat” which he downed immediately once it go to the table.  The USC alum then told the waiter to bring both of them “Sam Adams Boston Lager…bottles every 10 minutes until we tell you to stop.”  Yes, they took a cab home once the USC alum’s wife started calling to find out where they were at!)

No, we haven’t a clue to what USC was thinking when they hired Lane Kiffin, especially with the NCAA bearing down on the Trojans athletic department and knowing some of the “things” that went on with Kiffin at Tennessee.  If we all go back a few years to when Lane Kiffin was on the staff at USC when Norm Chow was still running the Trojans offense (before 2004), if someone would have told any of us that Lane Kiffin would have been the head coach at USC in 2010 the person making that statement would have been taken to the loony bin.  Move ahead to Kiffin’s tenure with the Oakland Raiders (2007-2008), if someone would have said that Lane Kiffin would be the USC head football coach in 2010that person would have been put on heavy medication and under 24 hour suicide watch, because clearly that would have been a person that had lost his mind.  Move ahead to December 2009 when the word came down that after getting run out of Oakland it was announced that Lane Kiffin had been hired by Tennessee to replace Phil Fulmer was yet another stunning moment which told us here at CHS that the folks in Knoxville had lost their minds.  That brings us to January 12, 2010 when the CHS member and his USC friend alum are having dinner in Santa Monica and here comes the word that yet another institution, this time the USC football program, had hired Lane Kiffin as their head coach and you have a series of events with Lane Kiffin that still defy belief today.

Very simply, if Lane Kiffin was a complete straight arrow, if we thought he had unquestioned integrity, if we believed that Kiffin acted with class and respect towards the game of college football and all that has comer before him…..

There is not a chance in Hell we would hire him to coach a Pee-Wee 75lb football team, forget about the head coaching job at a place like USC.

If you include in Kiffin’s behavior going back to the arrogance we first saw when he arrived at USC and the way he behaved and coached at Oakland and Tennessee, then we have to wonder….

Do these folks at USC know Up from Down?

Question:  Would anyone here at CHS hire Lane Kiffin to wash our cars?

Answer:  Not a chance in Hell because we do not TRUST Lane Kiffin.

Since Lane Kiffin is now the head football coach at USC we are now working under the assumption that the people involved in that decision, including new USC AD Pat Haden, disagree with us completely AND vehemently on our opinion of Lane Kiffin…..

Good, we all now know where we stand and where the folks at USC including Pat Haden stand.

Luckily because USC and Lane Kiffin must play the games we are all going to find out who was Right and who was Wrong about Lane Kiffin, with the only problem being that USC making the wrong decision in this spot can set their football program back a decade.

We shall all see….

Tomorrow, the next Category….

Mediocre or Unknown hire.  We either think this hire is mediocre or we don’t know enough about this coach to have a strong opinion either way.

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