Coaches Hot Seat In the Great Rocky Mountains In Northern Montana and It Seems Bobby Petrino Is Also In Montana and Was Last Week Talking To ESPN’s Joe Schad – The TRUTH About Bobby Petrino in the Past and the Question That An Athletic Director and College President MUST Ask Themselves in the Future When They Consider Hiring Bobby Petrino To Lead Their Football Program – Yes, Jed Clampett Was Right Again….”Pitiful….Pitful”
Many Coaches Hot Seat members have been in the Great Rocky Mountains of northern Montana for the last week enjoying this beautiful country of ours…
….and after a morning of fishing we came back to the RV to find that Bobby Petrino was also in Montana and talking to ESPN’s Joe Schad about what happened in his final days at Arkansas and we presume how Petrino would be a different coach and man if he does get a another shot to be a head football coach.
Here is Joe Schad’s interview with Bobby Petrino this past week:
Bobby Petrino emotional, regretful, Joe Schad, ESPN.com
We have no doubt at all that Bobby Petrino is a great football coach who was before being fired at Arkansas one of the best play-callers and game-managers in Major College Football….BUT….Bobby Petrino also had a very big weakness and that weakness is what led to Petrino’s downfall at Arkansas and that weakness was (and may still be)…
Bobby Petrino was (is still?) a Pompous Arrogant Ass that believed (still believes?) he is God’s gift to the world
Look no further to the way Bobby Petrino acted while the head coach at Louisville where he wasn’t honest about interviewing for the LSU and Auburn jobs and of course the “slither out like a snake” departure from the Atlanta Falcons and one had (still has?) a pretty good handle of what Bobby Petrino was (is still?) all about and when one adds in the “Blonde on back of the Harley” and LYING to your boss incident at Arkansas there had (still has to be?) to be some serious questions about Bobby Petrino’s character and not just Petrino’s character when he was a 20-year old boy in college having a good time partying down with his buddies and friends BUT when he was the head football coach at Louisville, the Atlanta Falcons and at Arkansas.
We must admit that we have a personal bias in favor of Bobby Petrino because we have been visiting Montana for a couple of decades now and long before Bobby Petrino was a head football coach we knew and followed his father Bob Petrino, Sr. when he was the head football coach at Carroll College for 28 years (1971 – 1998) where we took in at least a dozen Carroll football games over the years and we can tell from first-hand personal experience Bob Petrino Sr. could coach the game of football and thus why we were not surprised at all that Bobby and Paul Petrino (who Bob Petrino, Sr. coached as QBs at Carroll) turned out to be very good football coaches as well.
Of course, knowing the history of the Petrino family means we can understand how painful it must be for Bobby Petrino and the entire Petrino family to deal with Bobby’s transgressions over the years and especially this last debacle at Arkansas mainly because it runs so directly counter to what the Petrino family has been about for several decades now.
Just read this glowing tribute about Bob Petrino, Sr. in the Helena Record newspaper from 2005…
Bob Petrino, Sr., Helena Record
….and note these two paragraphs to see the damage that Bobby Petrino has done to not only himself but his entire family with his selfish actions:
“”The number of young people that coach Petrino has influenced is immense,” wrote former Capital coach and Petrino’s son-in-law, Mark Samson. “Many of his former players went on to become successful teachers, coaches, doctors, lawyers, businessmen and politicians. And they will all tell you that much of their success is due to the work ethic instilled in them by coach Petrino. Putter also served as Carroll’s Athletic Director for several years, and headed-up fundraising efforts that brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars for athletic scholarships.”
Petrino coached a number of great teams and a plethora of superior athletes, but I’m guessing his two favorites would be his own sons, Bobby and Paul, who were both collegiate All-American quarterbacks. But he might even be more proud of their coaching careers, as Bobby is now the head man at Louisville and Paul is the Cardinals’ offensive coordinator. One of his more pleasurable past-times in his retirement is flying down to visit with his sons n talking, watching and (of course) helping coach football.”
Do we really need to comment on the above two paragraphs?
Didn’t think so.
Now take a look at another Helena Record story about the Petrino family “coaches”:
Petrinos define coaching, Curt Synness, Helena Record
“”A trainer or director in athletics. To mentor or train. To prepare by teaching, training or drilling.”
These are some of the definitions of the word “coach.”
Those terms could also describe the Petrinos, a name that’s synonymous with Capital High and Carroll College football. From 1971-98, Bob “Putter” Petrino, Sr. coached the Saints to 16 Frontier championships. Bob and Patsy Petrino’s sons — Bobby (Putter Jr.) and Paul — both standout CHS and Carroll gridders, are currently the head coach and offensive coordinator, respectively, at the University of Louisville.”
Yes, Bobby Petrino through some incredibly selfish actions at Arkansas, at Louisville and also with the Atlanta Falcons has done tremendous damage to the Petrino name and we can imagine that Bobby is getting an earful about his selfish actions from lots of people in Montana and around the country and rightfully Damn so.
As for what Bobby Petrino’s interview with Joe Schad was REALLY all about…
Bobby Petrino wants to get back into the head coaching business
…we of course don’t have a clue if Petrino is being honest or not or if he is really remorseful for his actions or if he is as one of our wives said this week…
“Remorseful that he got caught cheating on his wife with that young blonde honey!”
To that point we could only make the determination if we would hire Bobby Petrino or not by talking to him directly in a very direct way and since we are not in the business of hiring football coaches and we will not be talking to Bobby Petrino anytime soon (although if we did run into Bobby we would give him a piece of our minds) we do have a nice little piece of advice on whether an athletic director and college president should hire Petrino or anyone else that has made one or more serious missteps in their life and it was given to us many years ago by the CEO of a company that often had to hire very talented people that had made mistakes in their lives and this CEO told us he used a special “qualifier” when considering the hiring of what he called a “troubled-child.”
The CEO’s piece of advice when considering hiring someone in a key position that was very talented BUT had made some serious mistakes or had lapses of judgment in their past was…
“After I am convinced the person can add to the organization and help us achieve our goals I then ask myself one simple question about the person:
Will I have to constantly check-up on the person myself to see if he/she is doing things right in their personal and/or business life OR even worse do I believe I would have to hire someone to check-up on the person to see if he/she is doing things right in their personal and/or business life?
If I decide after interviewing the person myself that I will have to spend lots of time or money just checking to see if they are doing things right in their personal and/or business life beyond them doing the job we hired them to do then I will NOT hire that person because that is someone that I CANNOT trust and if I CANNOT trust someone I don’t want them working for my company.”
Therefore the decision by an athletic director and college president to hire Bobby Petrino in the future to take over their football program will come down to one very simple question:
“Do I (and we) trust Bobby Petrino?”
OR rather…
“Can Bobby Petrino be trusted?”
The MOST pitiful thing about the above is that Bobby Petrino by his own actions has put HIMSELF into a position where athletic directors and college presidents NOT only have to consider if Petrino is a great coach (He is) and if Petrino can run a college football program (He can)…BUT…also if….
“Can Bobby Petrino be trusted?”
As Great Buddy Ebsen playing Jed Clampett would have said in this spot:
“Pitiful….Pitiful.”
The Great Earl Scruggs and his band playing…“The Ballad of Jed Clampett”
