Say Goodbye To 'The Coach'

Coaches Like Saban Are An Endangered Species

Napier may be a great coach and one who has a significant positive impact on his players on and off the field. But he may not be up to the challenge of navigating a program in need of general managers and directors of player personnel...

By Carlton Reese

Special Contributor To GatorBaitMedia.com

Any man who was an athlete in younger days can no doubt recount at least one special mentor that helped change the direction of his life or at least filled him with lessons for living adhered to even as age has robbed him of the talents he once possessed. For most, that mentor was a coach, an adult father figure whose hand was firm when discipline demanded and whose touch was gentle in moments of vulnerability. The secrets of the game imparted to the student in the long run carried less value than the character instilled.

Once a coach, he is referred to as such for life by those who grew into men under his guidance. Not called "Mister" or "Sir," he is forever called "Coach" long after the whistle has been retired – the honor remains and for more than just sentimentality. For a college athlete, especially a football player, the bond between player and coach rivals any relationship a person will enjoy in life in terms of its relevancy to the maturation process.

An NFL coach enjoys no such standing. He is a mere task master placing chess pieces onto the board, orchestrating well-groomed professionals to complete the assignment at hand. But in college, the athlete is still virgin clay, waiting for the proper hands to mold him into what he is to become. The bond is familial.

So, when Nick Saban recently spoke at a roundtable conference in Washington, D.C. regarding the future of college athletics, it seemed more of a eulogy to “The Coach.” He shared an anecdote from his wife, Miss Terry, who questioned the relevance of coaching.

He recalled how they would host recruits and their parents for Sunday breakfast, meet with the mothers and discuss how they were going to make an impact on their sons and take care of them. But the direction of the sport in terms of NIL negotiations amid the backdrop of the looming transfer portal, seemed to bring it all into question.

“Why are we doing this?” Saban quoted his wife as asking. “All they care about is how much you’re going to pay them. They don’t care about how you’re going to develop them, which is what we’ve always done.”

Terry’s question was probably being asked by coaches’ wives all across the country. Wives who have seen the role of their husbands transform from caring mentor to cold bureaucrat.

With the fire surrounding Billy Napier’s job security at Florida, there have been suggestions that the program turn the keys over to a general manager type person who can handle the negotiations and streamline the business end of the job. To translate, it means relegating the role of the college coach to mere taskmaster, one who draws up ball plays, schedules practices and gameday routines then heads to the office and locks his door.

College football has entered the era of the Bonus Baby, and the role of the coach will be less of a molder of men and more of pencil pusher of plays. It is as though the modern model of the NFL coach will now be manifested at the college level. The most important person in the program will be the GM, and the coach will take orders.

Those who played under Vince Lombardi or Don Shula or Tom Landry will likely tell stories of how those men shaped their lives even though they were still in the professional ranks. Today, athletes come to the coaches already knowing everything and in need of the coach simply to not get in the way. Mentoring falls solely on the college coach, but today that is even changing right before our eyes.

A Bonus Baby at quarterback does not need a life coach, he needs a financial advisor. And he may not even be of legal drinking age.

So, what are we left with? Mentoring athletes and shaping young boys into young men now falls solely onto the high school coach. Many are performing this task quite nicely, but almost no prep athlete graduates completely molded into the man he is required to be in this world.

Saban’s wife sensed it – hell, most people sensed it even from a distance – and that’s where the game is. For years, the cynics cried about the hypocrisy of college athletics’ amateurism and the push was strong to compensate players while schools raked in untold profits. And we have arrived at the predicted destination with some unintended consequences.

The hypocrisy is gone, and with it “The Coach.” Boys in need of paternal guidance are now receiving more advice from agents. For shame, what has been casually dismissed in our society in order to correct what are perceived wrongs. The old saying used to be, “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” and today we have thrown “The Coach” out with the hypocrisy.

Those who used to boo college players were among the lowest of the low – such boorish antics were to be reserved for those being paid to ply their craft. Today? Well, when that Bonus Baby fails to get the job done, the booing won’t be boorish; it will be one’s duty.

Napier may be a great coach and one who has a significant positive impact on his players on and off the field. But he may not be up to the challenge of navigating a program in need of general managers and directors of player personnel, and it will likely cost him his job. Becoming a coach because it means having a positive effect on young men’s lives – those positions will be the domain of places like Buchholz, Raines and Miami Northwestern. Not in Gainesville, Athens or Tuscaloosa.