Charlie Weis&Others/The Life of a Coach: One Coach's Thought

By this time next week or the week after a number of college head coaches will no longer hold their positions. While almost all I only "know" from reading about them in the media, one is someone I have come to know and respect. And all have situations perhaps best personified by witnessing from afar the inexorably slow, painfully played out, likely demise of Notre Dame football Head Coach Charlie Weis.

Perhaps it is because I am a first year women's basketball college Head Coach at an institution unique unto itself as a military junior college with a female enrollment of 33. Or maybe it's is due to my other long time career as an advisor and coach to senior executives and Boards of Directors of for and not-for- profit organizations around the world. Whatever, as detached as these imminent coaching changes are to my life and how I identify myself, they do raise questions that deserve airing too infrequently dealt with publicly:

I don't know and have never met Coach Weis. Still I cannot help but wonder about the impact on his family and friends brought about by all the speculation & commentary of his about to be firing (unless there is a humongous surprise).

It cannot be anything but dreadful.

Similarly I cannot help but wonder what it says about Notre Dame (along with West Point and the Naval Academy, my favorite American academic and sports institutions) how this has been allowed to play out.

What it makes me wonder about is what exactly is owed by a college coach?

Where are the lines drawn between performance off and on the field (or court, or baseball diamond, or ice etc)?

And if and how my perspective would be different if I were a Trustee or loyal supporter of the school's athletics department?

While I recognize Coach Weis said himself that a team record of 6-5 was not good enough, is a winning (albeit not overwhelmingly so) career record more important than what a Head Coach does for the community he or she is a part of or the academic performance of team members?

Or seen in a different light, would being 9-3 or 10-2 or even 12-0 be acceptable under any circumstances? No matter what happens off the playing field?

In other words, what if Charlie Weis' teams had gone unbeaten this year? But instead of a 96% graduation rate his players have experienced over the duration of his being Notre Dame Head Coach, only 5% 10% or 20% or 30% of his players had graduated: Would that be worthy of a new contract?

Where should the lines be drawn?

What are, what should be the expectations from the school administration? Alumni?

It is an issue I have long thought about. Going back to when I first came to the US from Canada as a highly popular issues-oriented radio and television talk show host with the reputation for asking the questions no one dared ask, I once had as my guest one of the country's best known and respected NCAA Divsion One Head Coaches. Whose eventual contract renewal was not in question. Assumed to be a done deal for someone who clearly had not anticipated being asked:

What's the overall graduation rate of the players you've recruited over the years?

Put simply, the answer was zero...none...nada.

Not one had graduated.

Yet for years he'd been held up by the media and alumni and school adminstrations to be a successful Head Coach.

Why?

Because his teams won.

But was that enough? Is it? Should it be?

Where should the lines be drawn?

In a similar vein, even if a college head coach has an overwhelming winning record, or better yet wins a conference, even national championship, what if one or more players on the team were caught, arrested, if not convicted for felonies ranging from armed robbery to sexual assault.

Is he or she a head coach to be lionized & held out to be a terrific success by alumni or media or the school adminstration?

Where should the lines be drawn?

What is the ultimate responsibility of a College Head Coach?

And while you are thinking about that, here's something else to think about: with the country at war what would you say are the appropriate expections of a military academy Head Coach?

Where should the lines be drawn between success on and off the playing field at Air Force, or West Point or Annapolis?

What does any Head Coach owe his or her institution?

Vice Versa?....