Incest is Best – Or is it?

Football is popular in the south, and so it is no surprise that in the world of football, some schools still insist on in-breeding when it comes to hiring coaches. Don’t jump off this because it is a southern guy talking about the benefits of in-breeding – this is about football, after all, and the incest talk is just a metaphor, admittedly one that southern folk are acquainted with. At many schools, history and tradition carry more weight than they do in the Vatican. They certainly rate higher than recent success or ability to coach. But is this a successful strategy?

What really brought this question to mind is reading about the coaching search at Michigan, usually via mgoblog.com. The travails of their coaching search were well-publicized, with many events played out in the media, and on blogs and message boards. On no less than three occasions – including the fact and timing of Lloyd Carr’s resignation announcement – the information was made public on blogs and message boards well before it was available in the main-stream media. This decentralization of publicly available information has fueled a rumor-filled news cycle in which planes are being tracked, back-channel contacts have been as public as summit meetings, and every possible candidate has been endlessly dissected.

Much of the questions regarding the Michigan concerned Les Miles, a Michigan man. Miles’s loyalty to his alma mater is well-known; he met his wife there, his first child was born there, and the only school for which there is a buyout in his contract is Michigan. This allegiance to the Blue made him a favorite of many Michigan fans.

Not every school can go looking for someone who is a “University X man.” It is hard to imagine Vanderbilt looking for a “Vandy Man,” or a “Commodore for life.” There are few who bleed “Syracuse Orange” or who kiss the hallowed ground at Baylor. But for those few schools whose tradition permits them, it is an almost irresistible draw. The one common factor to all of these situations: a legendary coach who led the school in the glory days.

The first example is the most obvious. Alabama has great football tradition, and perhaps the most legendary coach in the history of college football – Paul “Bear” Bryant. Stories about the Bear are mythical and fearsome. I didn’t even grow up in Alabama (my mother did, and my father moved there when he was 17), yet I heard stories of running sessions set up with buckets at either end for players to vomit into, of long practices without water, many other tales of his toughness. I did grow up in Baton Rouge, and the Bear was a respected and feared figure. I had just begun to achieve football awareness when he retired in 1982, so most of my memories are not first hand, but part of my collective cultural memory.

It was natural, then, when he retired, to try to replace him with someone who was familiar with his methods, values, and beliefs. This Alabama did first with Ray Perkins, who left after just 3 years to coach in the NFL. The next coach was Bill Curry, who had played for Vince Lombardi in Green Bay, but had no connection to Bryant. He went 0-3 against Auburn in his three years before leaving for Kentucky. At this point, the powers that be in Alabama decided that it had been a mistake to look outside the Bryant coaching family tree, as they had with Curry. Thus they hired Gene Stallings, who had played for Bear Bryant at Texas A&M and coached under him at Alabama. He led them to a national title at the end of the 1992 season, and he resigned 4 years later. He was followed by Mike Dubose, a defensive lineman under Bear from 1972-74. The Dubose era was marked by scandal, upsets and more scandal. Since Dubose, Bammers have suffered through non-Bear tree coaches Franchione and Price. Then it was back to the family tree for Mike Shula, but loyalty mattered little, and they booted him and brought in Saban, who has no connection to Bryant.

Notre Dame is another school that tries to look within it’s tradition. Of course, the Domers have had their share of legendary coaches: Rockne, Parseghian, and Holtz. After Holtz, Notre Dame went outside the family for Bob Davie, which was judged a failure, but they stayed outside when they hired Tyrone Willingham. It is important to note, however, that Willingham was hired only after a scandal forced Notre Dame to withdraw an offer that they had made to George O’Leary – a man technically not in the family, but can anyone whose name is O’Leary be considered outside the Notre Dame Family? After the Willingham experiment failed, Notre Dame looked inside the family again, hiring wildly successful NFL Offensive Coordinator Charlie Weis. To date, he is failing harder than Basic Instinct 2.

Or consider the example of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  Upon the retirement of legendary coach Tom Osborne, his protege Frank Solich was hired.  When he was let go (after dropping the Huskers to an unthinkable 9-3 record), the Huskers looked outside the family and brought in failed NFL coach Bill Callahan.  After this most recent season, when Callahan’s Husker team became the first in NCAA history to give up 70 points one week and then score 70 points the next week, the president brought in whom?  None other than Tom Osborne, the former legendary coach, to fix the program.  His solution was to fire Callahan and hire Bo Pelini, a man from outside, but one who understoond the values and traditions associated with Nebraska Football.

Finally, we now know that Michigan went outside the family and hired Rich Rodriguez from West Virginia (his divorce from the West Virginia family is fodder for another post). However, not everyone was happy with the hire: Desmond Howard, a former Heisman winner being one of them. So will it work out, or should Michigan have gone with someone who bleeds maize and blue? Only time will tell. Incestuous hires have both succeeded and failed. It seems reasonable, however, to say that placing a high emphasis on hiring incestuously leads to retarded seasons.