Last week the University of Georgia athletic department made a polarizing move by getting rid of longtime head football coach Mark Richt. The move caught many by surprise including myself, but for many Bulldog fans it was a move in the “right” direction. After a 9-3 season, it’s astonishing that a coach would be relieved of his duty. Colquitt County head coach Rush Propst said it best, “I worry where football is going in general. The fact that you fire a guy that goes 9-3 on a team that I am 100%positive could not win more than eight games”. Unfortunately, the higher-ups in Athens didn’t share the same sentiment. Only time will tell if they made the right decision.
In the ever-changing world of high school and college football, programs are constantly looking for that figure head to guide them to the top. In order for a football program to succeed, they must find a coach that can fit their goals or adapt their strategy to the strengths that the coach currently possesses. Being realistic with oneself goes a long way on whether the right decision has been made. Sadly, that’s where most programs go wrong. They fail to establish an identity that corresponds with the talent around them.
When many coaches are hired, the first thing that gets mentioned is their reputation. A reputation is developed by your actions along with the way you handle situations, both good and bad. In any profession, once you build a reputation it sticks with you throughout your career and can be difficult to shake no matter how hard you try. This principle can’t be any truer than with coaching. In an arena generally defined by wins and losses, finding good coaching can be hard and finding great coaching can be nearly impossible. A wise man once told me that a great coach doesn’t sprout from a single trait, rather the sum of many aspects, some of which are out of his or her control. It all boils down to what’s more important when hiring a coach: wins and championships or player/personal development.
Winning at All Costs
Countless amounts of “experts” at ESPN always name two coaches when tossing around the label of “elite”, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer. Both have won National Championships at multiple, well-known powerhouses. And both, especially Meyer, have also been known to give their student-athletes multiple chances after failing drug tests and committing crimes. The then Florida, now Ohio State coach has been known to recruit players with troubled pasts including Aaron Hernandez and Percy Harvin. An alarming statistic I saw the other day was that 41 or UF’s 2008 championship squad had been arrested in college or since. Despite that, no one questions that team for being dominant but it is has come to the point, does short term success outweigh the long-term association?
Personal/Personal Development
Mark Richt has often been criticized throughout his head coaching career for not winning when it matters most. In all fairness, that is to be expected especially from a man with his high moral standard. Richt has been known for being a no tolerance coach that does not accept the misconducts of his players. Steve Spurrier has famously remarked that he enjoyed playing UGA at the beginning of the season because he knew that players were going to be suspended. All jokes aside, that should be something Coach Richt is praised for. Not allowing players to get away with unjustifiable acts just for the satisfaction of a momentary win is admirable. It helps establish the principle that you can’t always get what you want. That’s just life.
The Lost Art of Patience
The attribute commonly known as patience is dying, and dying rapidly. Many fans forget it took Bobby Bowden 17 years to establish and build a Florida State Seminole program into a champion. It has taken Clemson coach Dabo Swinney 8 seasons to extinguish the term “Clemsoning”, and he still has two more games to go before he can even lift a trophy.
Coming into the 2015 season, Georgia fans knew that the quarterback position was going to headline a season of question marks. They knew Coach Richt’s 2016 recruiting haul might have been the one to lead a great push. He was finally bringing in a 5-star gunslinger, who was good enough to start from day one, to go along with a top 3 class. However, with Alabama obliterating the Dawgs and Florida’s instant success with Jim McElwain the need for a change was more apparent than ever.
So…was Richt’s firing justified?
The beauty of a great debate is that an argument can neither be right nor wrong, but rather showcases well explained opinions. With that said, it’s my opinion that the overall mission for a football program, high school or college, is to hire a guy with the desire to groom young student-athletes into upstanding citizens that society can be proud of. The mind is still developing through teenage years and many players make decisions that can unfortunately affect them for the rest of their lives. They must realize that despite their athletic ability most of them won’t play in the NFL on Sunday afternoons. Being able to value and respect the lives of those around them should be understood. That’s what Mark Richt believed in; no one person was greater than the team and those who thought otherwise were quickly shown the door. Although instant gratification is nice, being able to prepare athletes for life after football should be more important.
You won’t find any complaints with me however. As a huge Canes fan, I’m a firm believer that Coach Richt will bring the sunny days back to Coral Gables!
The Role of a Football Coach: Was Mark Richt’s firing justified?
by: Lambert Bales
