Firing Coaches Mid-Season: Bad for Business?

Just recently Alabama’s head coach Mark Gottfried sent in his resignation and Georgia’s Dennis Felton was fired, right in the middle of their seasons.  This led to a Seth Davis article about what he feels is a bad new trend in college basketball.  Hoops programs at the college level should not fire their coaches in the middle of a season unless there is extreme, highly irregular reasons for doing so. Or at least so says Seth Davis.

Here at the Final Four Blog, we tend to agree with Davis.  How can you be sure you’re not going to see the coach turn things around?  How would you like to be the Cardinals, being completely outplayed in the first half of the Super Bowl, then have your owner say, “Alright guys, I’ve seen enough. We’re pulling out of the game.” It seems to go contrary to some of the best things about sports, especially at the collegiate, technically amateur level.  Is there no honor in gutting it out when the going gets tough?  Is there no room for a bad start but a promising finish?  And what about the children? What about the detriment to team cohesiveness following a regime change?

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Permalink - Posted in General on February 2, 2009 - Post a comment