Monday, October 31, 2016

Lovie, Lon Kruger and Nick Saban: The Importance of Hiring “Fit”

Adam Rittenberg of ESPN reports today, “Several industry sources say that Smith is miserable in Champaign. Yes, every 2-6 coach is miserable, but this situation is especially sour — and that the rebuilding job looks much greater than he anticipated. Could Lovie be one-and-done?”
For perspective, let’s recall Nick Saban’s failed experience as a head coach of the Miami Dolphins. The logic behind his hiring was (a) NFL rosters were becoming younger, (b) a college coach would understand younger players, and (c) Saban won a national title at LSU in 2003.
Saban was a head coach at Toledo (1990), and Michigan State (1995-1999) and LSU (2000-2004) before he had a HC job in the NFL. He wasn’t a bad coach but he was the wrong fit for the NFL. As soon as he returned to Alabama, his greatness as a coach became immediately evident.
Lon Kruger coached at a very successful level at Kansas State, Florida, and Illinois before he left NCAA coaching for the HC job of the Atlanta Hawks. He bombed there—but he was hired because the league was getting younger, and the Hawks assumed a college coach would relate to a younger team.
Like Saban, as an NCAA “retread” he revitalized UNLV, took a better job at Oklahoma, and took his team to the NCAA Final Four last year.
Lovie Smith has a similar pattern. He was never more than an assistant coach in college, and left NCAA football in 1996. Twenty years later, he returned to Illinois as a head coach.

There is a reason that labor markets for head coaches in professional leagues and the NCAA rarely overlap—the games are played very differently; a unionized employment relationship for players is very different from an NCAA-regulated relationship that coaches manage with “student-athletes”; and the cultures of pro leagues and NCAA teams are worlds apart. (Consider Chip Kelly in this context, too.)
Jim Harbaugh, you say, as a counter-example?
Let’s not forget that Harbaugh is the son of a “lifer” NCAA football coach, Jack Harbaugh. Quoting Jim Harbaugh’s wiki bio, “During Harbaugh's childhood, the family moved frequently, as his father held assistant coaching positions at Morehead State (1967), Bowling Green (1967–1970), Iowa (1971–1973), Michigan (1973–1979), Stanford (1980–1981), and Western Michigan (1982–1986).” Later, Harbaugh had a successful 13-year career as an NFL quarterback with the Bears, Colts and Chargers. No wonder he is a rare example of someone who understands both worlds of NCAA and NFL football.

Whether hiring is for Division I, NFL and NBA coaches, or any other setting what matters is getting the right fit between the job candidate and the needs of the organization. A hiring process that ignores the fit issues often yields disappointing results.

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