Finding one's niche

The regular season for college football is over except for the Army-Navy game in about ten days. The conference championship games will be played on Friday and Saturday and the playoff teams will be determined as well as who will play in the bowl games.

Coaches will be fired and those positions will need to be filled. And many assistant coaching positions will be up for grabs as those coaches will become head coaches somewhere, or try their luck at a more recognizable place with awesome facilities and more money to earn.

Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith will be the new leader at Michigan State. Oregon State wasn’t invited to be part of the new Big 10 which is up to eighteen but who’s counting. Not knowing what Oregon State is planning to do in the future when it comes to a conference to play in Smith decided to join the Big 10 as a coach. He has a big job at MSU after all of the issues they have there. It’s too bad for Oregon State. Smith did a really good job rebuilding in the shadow of the University of Nike. Good luck to him. He’ll need it.

So coaches will be fired, or retire or move on to another challenge, or get lucky and walk into a place where it is easy to recruit and the facilities will impress an athletic 18 year old kid that has big dreams of winning the national championship and the Heisman Trophy. And if it works out get drafted to play in the NFL. But with those facilities, big paycheck and talented recruits the pressure to win will be immense. But getting fired with a big severance package is almost like winning the lottery.

So what happens to the coaches that don’t get hired someplace else? I watched my share and maybe other people’s share of football and basketball games last week. What I’ve noticed are the former coaches that are now part of the pregame, halftime and postgame shows. Their expertise is on display for the whole world to see and they do a good job explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the teams and players. But what is interesting to me is that most of the expert analysis is coming from coaches that were fired because they didn’t win enough games or go to a bowl game or make the NCAA tournament. I’ve often wondered why a coach that has had a great deal of success at one school wants to move on and rebuild at a place that’ll write a bigger paycheck but the expectations are also unreasonable.

Gonzaga’s Mark Few could have gone just about anywhere he wanted after every tournament run he’s had in the last 20 plus years. It’s obvious that chasing money is collecting more headaches in the form of a fan base with pie in the sky expectations. Coach Few has stayed in Spokane believing that he can win a National Championship at Gonzaga. His Bulldogs have played in two championship games since 2017. His teams have been very consistent and made big improvements throughout each season. If Few went to another school the fan base would expect overnight success and if he didn’t deliver in a year or two would they want to fire him? Fans are a bit crazy to say the least and they want results immediately. I think Mark Few looks at his team as a business and he wants it to succeed. Therefore it will be tough for him to leave it for anything else except for maybe a fishing trip or two.

One other thing I wanted to mention in this column. I have satellite radio and on Saturdays I have a tendency to listen to a game or two in my travels. I will find a game and start to listen and then during a commercial l will channel surf. Oftentimes the game I’m listening to will be broadcast on two channels which means that there is a home team and visiting team airing of the game. I’m not surprised but it’s usually the color guy on the broadcast that will complain about the referee calls. “Well we haven’t had a call go our way all afternoon!” And the color guy is usually a former player who can speak well, but not always. So there is a place for every former coach or player as an expert. There’s money in them thar’ broadcasts!

— Dale Anderson is a sports columnist from Ritzville. To contact him, email [email protected].