Bed of Lies

In a  college sports culture driven increasingly by profits and cash, Sean Hannon, a Notre Dame Senior and student in Social Foundations of Coaching,  offers an opinion on the state of coaching.

Coaches in collegiate athletics preach loyalty, dedication, and perseverance.  They recruit young teens, wide-eyed and ready to trust successful, smart adults.  They promise these young men a chance to play for a great team, to attend a prestigious university, and to be coached by the best.  However, I am not so sure that coaches nowadays practice what they preach.

Todd Graham, Urban Meyer, Lane Kiffin, and John Calipari are all successful coaches in their respective sports.  They are great recruiters, they get their players to buy into their philosophy, and they say the right things.  If you have ever heard one of them talk, you cannot help but believe what they say.  These four men use their persuasive speech to bring their team together, to build a community, to win games, and then they use it to find the door, to flee, to find a better job, at a better school, in a place that pays more.

Last December Todd Graham texted, that is right, texted his players at Pitt that he had taken a job to coach at Arizona State only 11 months after he had taken the head coaching job at Pitt.  To be clearer, Graham, after not receiving approval from the Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson to talk with Arizona State, texted his decision to two Pitt assistant athletic directors, who forwarded the text message to the players. 

Graham, only seven days prior talked with Pitt receiver Devin Street and, as Street recounts, “He told me he's here to stay.  He said he wanted to make me the best player he can.”  After Graham’s decision, Street told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “It's all a lie. It's been all a lie this whole time. Everything he told us has been a lie.”  This abuse by a coach is mind numbing.  A coach is trusted with so much by his players, and it is baffling to see the coach return so little of that trust. 

Pitt Senior defensive tackle, Chas Alecxih, put it best, saying, “How is it in college football, if a player wants to leave he has to do all kinds of stuff, he has to fill out paperwork, he has to sit out a year?  But if a coach wants to leave he can up and leave without so much as a moment's notice.”  As some would say, loyalty is as thin as a dollar bill.

Seeing this really makes me question this double standard the college athletics hold.  Teams and coaches expect their players to be loyal to a school, but coaches are free to do whatever they want.  They have to pay a buyout clause if they leave before their contract expires, but that means nothing to a coach who has just found a higher paying job.  The school and team are left high and dry.  However, if a school wants to fire a coach, it must pay him a termination package.  Coaches seem to be the ones with the upper hand here.  They lie, they scheme, and they win.

Coaches like Todd Graham are horrible examples of how to be a coach.  Graham coached at Rice in 2006, signed a contract extension with the Owls through 2012, and then, one day later, used this new contract as leverage to get more money and become the head coach at Tulsa.  What makes this deceit even worse is that after he signed the contract extension with Rice, Graham said, “I am very grateful to Rice University for the opportunity to coach this team, and for the commitment the university has made to me and to my staff as we look forward to build on the efforts of our first season.”  Also after he got hired as the Pitt head coach he said, “I've spent my whole life working to get this job.”  Graham says these grand things making one think he is committed to the team, but instead he just says whatever will allow him to make it to where he wants to be next. 

Graham is unfortunately not alone in these deceitful practices.  Urban Meyer resigned as the head coach of Florida in 2010 to spend more time with his family, only to take become the head coach for Ohio State this season.  That does not seem like much family time after all.  Columnists in Florida say that Meyer built a house of cards in Gainesville and let them all come falling down on the next coach after he left.  Additionally, Lane Kiffin left Tennessee for USC after only coaching there one season.  Kiffin recruited a class of young men, selling to them the University of Tennessee, the football program, the school’s ideals, and himself, only to bolt for another, more lucrative offer.  Finally, in college basketball, John Calipari fled Massachusetts in 1996 when it seemed like NCAA sanctions were about to hit UMass.  Then, after he coached Memphis for nine seasons, he darted to Kentucky in 2009 before Memphis received sanctions from the NCAA for violations under Calipari.  These coaches all preach good things but when the going gets tough, and the money is on the table, they choose I over WE.  They do what is best for themselves and disregard the others in their wake. 

What is happening in college sports with coaches is sickening.  Coaches are meant to be people athletes trust, look up to, and respect.  Instead the coaches say one thing and do something else.  They preach “WE” but do what is best for the man in the mirror.  What is worse is that universities fuel the fire more than anyone.  Universities only care when they are the ones hurt by the coaching carousel.  They offer coaches more and more money in an attempt to get their team to win.  However, athletes are lost in this equation.  They are the ones harmed by these lies, and they have to deal with the consequences of decisions they do not make.  Coaches have a responsibility to their players and the universities for which the work to show the commitment, loyalty, and dedication they so often preach. 

Coaches have the unique opportunity to shape the lives of young people.  They are trusted with the development of these individuals, and with this trust comes responsibility.  

Coaches must be held accountable for their actions, because right now they are abusing their power.  Coaches need to reflect on why they became coaches, and they need to get back to the fundamentals of developing and teaching their players.  Steps by coaches AND universities will correct this scary and unpleasant path we have gone down in college athletics.  One can only hope steps are taken sooner rather than later, before any more young athletes get used by these smooth talking adults.