ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
We have been down this road before…this is the fourth coach to be fired starting with John Majors, in the last 25 years and one of those four had a 16 year run. This is the second consecutive head coach to be let go and now a search for another head coach, the fourth in the last decade……Coach Butch Jones fired Sunday with Brady Hoke selected as the interim for the last two games.
Have we learned anything as a university and athletic director’s office from the mistakes made in what obviously have been bad hires or at least, to be kind, hires that have not worked out well. On many Big Orange Sunday shows, on the Coach to Coach shows and in many of these Chalk Talks we consistently talk about “lessons”, a way for a coaching staff to “learn” from past games, practices, recruiting weekends, etc. in other words to review, talk through and hash out both the good and bad things that happened in each of these events. This was a huge part of my personal development as a coach as well as many other Tennessee coaches. Taking previous “lessons” about yearly opponents (Alabama, etc.) helped in preparing for those opponents in future years. Simply put “lessons” are there to assure you don’t make the same mistakes, construct the same failing game plan, bungle a key recruiting weekend or overlook some minute detail that kept you from being successful. ”Lessons“ additionally include the things that were good/successful, that worked and should be used again in the future.
As this process of hiring a new head coach goes forward I will have several Talks about how the process is moving forward, who is involved from the Volunteer side but not so much about “who” is being considered and courted for the position. There will be a lot of speculation about who our next coach will be, but I will concentrate on who is involved from the Tennessee part of the discussion and process. Every agent representing a coach will have his client’s name in the hat hoping at the very least to get his coach an extension or possibly a raise at his current job. That’s what agents do. However it is not important what agent or coach wants this job….what is essential is who the people are that are conducting this search, who are the informed people helping in the search and most importantly who is going make this decision. This is where the “lessons” of the past can and will come in very handy. What have the last fifteen years or so taught us? We start today!
Dr Joe Johnson retired as president of the UT system in 1999. Doug Dickey retired as athletic director in 2002. Those two events taken together started us on the path we are on today. Dr Johnson was the last of a nearly four decade’s long line of presidents that had come up through the University of Tennessee, presidents who “knew” this university and made decisions for Tennesseans. Additionally every athletic director for the Big Orange dating back to Neyland had either been a player and coach for the Vols, a head football coach at Tennessee or a combination of the two. Doug Dickey was the last athletic director who had actually coached a sport at the university level anywhere, let alone for the Big Orange. Tennessee has won 16 conference championships in football….all 16 have been won with a football coach as our athletic director. The practice of hiring presidents that had come up through the UT system and athletic directors with a strong Tennessee football background ended around the turn of the century. So did our practice of winning SEC championships in football. There are lessons available to be learned if there is a desire to learn them.
Post Dr Johnson the overseers of the university, the board of trustees, implemented policies that effectively did two things: 1) took the reporting authority of the athletic department out of the system president’s purview and place in under the chancellor of UT Knoxville’s control and 2) strongly pushed for the hiring of non-graduates in positions of power within the university….presidents, chancellors, athletic directors and head football coaches. As one prominent booster and longtime board member often commented “we are too in bred” i.e. we have too many Tennessee graduates running key areas of our university. Well we don’t now! I’m not sure if “outbred” is a word (it certainly should be) but that is what we have on the Hill right now. Certainly these “powers that be” making those decisions will push back on the second policy stated above and I am sure there is no official policy limiting the hiring of people with Tennessee diplomas. However a check of who has been hired since 2000 highlights one thing to this writer…..if you want a job in either of the two areas above you best not have on your resume that you are an undergraduate of the University of Tennessee.
Why is this important? What has taken place in the past can’t be undone, history is history but we can learn from the past….the good and the bad. Will the same people who have for 15 years made bad decision after bad decision in administrative and athletic hires be allowed to do so again? Do we have an athletic director that has the authority to hire and not merely rubber stamp the next head coach hire? Does he have the wisdom to not only listen to but deeply involve men who understand at the very least the football side of this hire? Men who know more than anyone what is entailed in building championships, playing for and winning championships. From my perspective I would put my faith and trust in this athletic director if he keeps Peyton Manning, Charles Davis and Phillip Fulmer not only involved but deeply involved in every step of this process. These three men can not only evaluate coaching candidates but also sell the university and program to the man chosen. And the next coach will most likely have to be sold on this job if he has a good job right now.
Here is what I do know…..someone will be writing “lessons” a few years from now on what happened in December 2017 with the Volunteer football program. Will it be a continuation of the previous 15 years or will our current athletic director change that history and like Bob Woodruff and Doug Dickey lead a vibrant and championship football program into the future. To paraphrase….the football is in his court!
In closing this first of several Chalk Talks, where are we as of November 17th 2017? The unofficial timeline for hiring a new coach is somewhere, give or take a few days, around the 10th of December. 2018 recruits have been told the new coach will be in place well before the early national signing date starting December 20th. This is important for you to know……regardless of what some are saying, writing or speculating I have been told by coaches at Tennessee and coaches who coach those recruits that the great number of commitments will indeed sign with the Vols, including most of those who have de-committed since Coach Jones removal…..as long as a coach has been hired before the early signing date. Mr. Currie has spent considerable time along with Bob Welton calling recruits and their families and keeping them up to date on the process. Keep this in mind also…..the new coach will almost certainly sign some players that he and his new staff have been recruiting at their current jobs. Of course this works both ways and we will probably lose a few of our current commitments as our assistant coaches take other jobs. Bottom line….”IF” a coach is in place by the middle of December we should be in very good shape come signing day. 50% of this commitment class is from the state of Tennessee…..one big reason why they have committed to the Vols. A new coach will not change that decision for most families.
So, there is a three week window to identify, evaluate, sell the next head coach and get him on the dotted line. Certainly progress has been made in this process for a couple of weeks…..it did not start with the Missouri loss but well prior to last weekend. Next week’s Talk will look at who are the people involved in this search, who will be included in the athletic directors evaluation and advice group. Without naming names (at this point at least) I know we are in a unique position in that we have several people available to provide great insight and wisdom in helping with this process……people who know the “lessons” of the past.
Let’s Talk next week…
We have been down this road before…this is the fourth coach to be fired starting with John Majors, in the last 25 years and one of those four had a 16 year run. This is the second consecutive head coach to be let go and now a search for another head coach, the fourth in the last decade……Coach Butch Jones fired Sunday with Brady Hoke selected as the interim for the last two games.
Have we learned anything as a university and athletic director’s office from the mistakes made in what obviously have been bad hires or at least, to be kind, hires that have not worked out well. On many Big Orange Sunday shows, on the Coach to Coach shows and in many of these Chalk Talks we consistently talk about “lessons”, a way for a coaching staff to “learn” from past games, practices, recruiting weekends, etc. in other words to review, talk through and hash out both the good and bad things that happened in each of these events. This was a huge part of my personal development as a coach as well as many other Tennessee coaches. Taking previous “lessons” about yearly opponents (Alabama, etc.) helped in preparing for those opponents in future years. Simply put “lessons” are there to assure you don’t make the same mistakes, construct the same failing game plan, bungle a key recruiting weekend or overlook some minute detail that kept you from being successful. ”Lessons“ additionally include the things that were good/successful, that worked and should be used again in the future.
As this process of hiring a new head coach goes forward I will have several Talks about how the process is moving forward, who is involved from the Volunteer side but not so much about “who” is being considered and courted for the position. There will be a lot of speculation about who our next coach will be, but I will concentrate on who is involved from the Tennessee part of the discussion and process. Every agent representing a coach will have his client’s name in the hat hoping at the very least to get his coach an extension or possibly a raise at his current job. That’s what agents do. However it is not important what agent or coach wants this job….what is essential is who the people are that are conducting this search, who are the informed people helping in the search and most importantly who is going make this decision. This is where the “lessons” of the past can and will come in very handy. What have the last fifteen years or so taught us? We start today!
Dr Joe Johnson retired as president of the UT system in 1999. Doug Dickey retired as athletic director in 2002. Those two events taken together started us on the path we are on today. Dr Johnson was the last of a nearly four decade’s long line of presidents that had come up through the University of Tennessee, presidents who “knew” this university and made decisions for Tennesseans. Additionally every athletic director for the Big Orange dating back to Neyland had either been a player and coach for the Vols, a head football coach at Tennessee or a combination of the two. Doug Dickey was the last athletic director who had actually coached a sport at the university level anywhere, let alone for the Big Orange. Tennessee has won 16 conference championships in football….all 16 have been won with a football coach as our athletic director. The practice of hiring presidents that had come up through the UT system and athletic directors with a strong Tennessee football background ended around the turn of the century. So did our practice of winning SEC championships in football. There are lessons available to be learned if there is a desire to learn them.
Post Dr Johnson the overseers of the university, the board of trustees, implemented policies that effectively did two things: 1) took the reporting authority of the athletic department out of the system president’s purview and place in under the chancellor of UT Knoxville’s control and 2) strongly pushed for the hiring of non-graduates in positions of power within the university….presidents, chancellors, athletic directors and head football coaches. As one prominent booster and longtime board member often commented “we are too in bred” i.e. we have too many Tennessee graduates running key areas of our university. Well we don’t now! I’m not sure if “outbred” is a word (it certainly should be) but that is what we have on the Hill right now. Certainly these “powers that be” making those decisions will push back on the second policy stated above and I am sure there is no official policy limiting the hiring of people with Tennessee diplomas. However a check of who has been hired since 2000 highlights one thing to this writer…..if you want a job in either of the two areas above you best not have on your resume that you are an undergraduate of the University of Tennessee.
Why is this important? What has taken place in the past can’t be undone, history is history but we can learn from the past….the good and the bad. Will the same people who have for 15 years made bad decision after bad decision in administrative and athletic hires be allowed to do so again? Do we have an athletic director that has the authority to hire and not merely rubber stamp the next head coach hire? Does he have the wisdom to not only listen to but deeply involve men who understand at the very least the football side of this hire? Men who know more than anyone what is entailed in building championships, playing for and winning championships. From my perspective I would put my faith and trust in this athletic director if he keeps Peyton Manning, Charles Davis and Phillip Fulmer not only involved but deeply involved in every step of this process. These three men can not only evaluate coaching candidates but also sell the university and program to the man chosen. And the next coach will most likely have to be sold on this job if he has a good job right now.
Here is what I do know…..someone will be writing “lessons” a few years from now on what happened in December 2017 with the Volunteer football program. Will it be a continuation of the previous 15 years or will our current athletic director change that history and like Bob Woodruff and Doug Dickey lead a vibrant and championship football program into the future. To paraphrase….the football is in his court!
In closing this first of several Chalk Talks, where are we as of November 17th 2017? The unofficial timeline for hiring a new coach is somewhere, give or take a few days, around the 10th of December. 2018 recruits have been told the new coach will be in place well before the early national signing date starting December 20th. This is important for you to know……regardless of what some are saying, writing or speculating I have been told by coaches at Tennessee and coaches who coach those recruits that the great number of commitments will indeed sign with the Vols, including most of those who have de-committed since Coach Jones removal…..as long as a coach has been hired before the early signing date. Mr. Currie has spent considerable time along with Bob Welton calling recruits and their families and keeping them up to date on the process. Keep this in mind also…..the new coach will almost certainly sign some players that he and his new staff have been recruiting at their current jobs. Of course this works both ways and we will probably lose a few of our current commitments as our assistant coaches take other jobs. Bottom line….”IF” a coach is in place by the middle of December we should be in very good shape come signing day. 50% of this commitment class is from the state of Tennessee…..one big reason why they have committed to the Vols. A new coach will not change that decision for most families.
So, there is a three week window to identify, evaluate, sell the next head coach and get him on the dotted line. Certainly progress has been made in this process for a couple of weeks…..it did not start with the Missouri loss but well prior to last weekend. Next week’s Talk will look at who are the people involved in this search, who will be included in the athletic directors evaluation and advice group. Without naming names (at this point at least) I know we are in a unique position in that we have several people available to provide great insight and wisdom in helping with this process……people who know the “lessons” of the past.
Let’s Talk next week…
