Say what you will about Michael Scott, but he would never do that.
- Jim Halpert on The Office
When Tennessee shitcanned its second winningest football coach in school history near the end of last season — a man who gave almost 40 years of his life to his university — it signaled not just a change in personnel, but a radical change in philosophy.
UT was one of the last holdouts of an era when coaches were grown at home, and stayed at home. The new era is one of mercenaries, ushered in by the hated Gators and Crimson Tide, but one that was inevitable with rising expectations.
It should never be a surprise when a mercenary does an about face and turns his sword toward the last bag of money when the next bag of money comes along. And while it is never a surprise, it still can be shocking when it actually happens, as it was last night.
So I don’t blame UT athletic director Mike Hamilton for hiring He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. He was just trying to give UT fans what they were asking for and did the best he could with the available information and pool of coaching talent. If you’re not careful, your school will give you what you ask for too.
great post. I miss the days of the homegrown coach. I’ll take a Billy Brewer over a Tommy ‘two-timing’ Tuberville any day of the week. When you can’t trust your coach, you’re not left with much. Loyalty is in short supply these days.
January 13th, 2010 at 1:03 pmIt’s an unfortunate sign of the times that is very much a two-way street in the high-stakes world of college athletics. Schools give new coaches five-year contracts and often fire them after Year 3 or sometimes after Year 2, (Walt Harris and Stanford comes to mind, as does Billy Gillispie and Kentucky, though, admittedly that was hoops). As long as $$$$$ increase with winning, this trend will continue. That said, Tennessee definitely deserved better. The question is how much blame does Hamilton take? After all, He Who Shall Not Be Named was his choice.
January 13th, 2010 at 2:50 pmIt appears Al Davis was right about one thing: HWNSNBS is a liar. He had all of us fooled, including me, and apparently Hamilton.
So I don’t know how much Hamilton can be blamed for being fooled by someone who was apparently a skilled liar. I don’t think anybody could have anticipated he’d bail after just one year.
January 13th, 2010 at 4:09 pm[...] Here are the final results. Many apologies for the misfire a couple of days ago. As I plan to do when anything else goes wrong this year, I blame He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. [...]
January 14th, 2010 at 8:02 am