When I got a text this evening from the World Wide Leader saying that Lane Kiffin was leaving the University of Tennessee to take over the same position with the USC Trojans, I was in disbelief. I thought to myself, "self, there is no way Kiffin is leaving UT after only one season of terrorizing SEC coaches with his immature actions." I didn't think a coach would leave a program as big as Tennessee for another huge program. So you can imagine my surprise upon the confirmation that Kiffin was heading to Southern California. This just isn't right and the NCAA needs to start changing the way coaching hires are handled at the FBS level of college football. Before I go on I'm going to say that I'm all for people going after jobs that pay them more money, if someone is willing to dish out a lot of cash for someone's services then by all means that person has the right to accept it.
Interested, I checked out the NCAA's website to look for their mission and sure enough I found it. You can click on it if you wish, but I'm going to highlight one part of this explaining why these coaching changes are becoming a problem. One of the bulleted items that the NCAA says they share a belief in and a commitment to is "the highest levels of integrity and sportsmanship." Now I don't know about you, but if someone is to believe in integrity, doesn't that mean that they honor contracts and are truthful when they speak? Coaches sign contracts not just with their employer but they also enter into an agreement with the student-athletes they recruit to come play for their school for 3 or 4 years. When a coach just gets up and leaves for a "better" job, he gets to do so with no penalty, he sends in a letter of resignation and moves on with a new group of players. Where's the integrity in that? We're seeing it more and more now too, when programs are facing possible NCAA sanctions the coaches leave for new jobs and avoid any punishment that they could be possibly responsible for. The NCAA needs to start holding coaches accountable for their actions or we're just going to see this coaching carousel get turned up to high speed.
When a student-athlete wants to leave a school for whatever reasons, he or she has to sit out a full year in order to play for that school if they are staying at the same level. There has to be some form of punishment suitable for coaches that leave a program before his or her contract is up. Forcing them to not be able to coach for a season would be an interesting move but non-effective in the long-run. And I don't think fines are suitable either because Universities will find ways to pay the fines for that coach.
When a coach goes through this:
Lane Kiffin Press Conference Part 1 from R Mitchell on Vimeo.
and then leaves after only a year, there's something wrong with that and change is needed to prevent it in the future.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment