Coach-In-Waiting Plan Needs to Go
Haste always invites waste. Such was the case with my 30-second rant last Friday at the end of Around the Horn against the trend of college coaches designating successors.
I expressed my amazement that Ralph Friedgen, the football coach at Maryland where I started teaching last semester, announced last Friday that he was tagging one of his assistants to be the program’s coach when his contract ends in three years. I argued that I didn’t think Friedgen had earned that right.
More important, I suggested that the growing movement of naming a head coach-in-waiting undermined equal opportunity in coaching.
What I didn’t point out was that the successor Friedgen named, James Franklin, is black. Therefore, my argument appeared to have a rather large hole.
fanhouse.com
2/7/09
