It’s weird to see a sports columnist for a national newspaper like the Washington Post who is completely out of touch with the sports she covers. An article today by Sally Jenkins demonstrates that this particular columnist has missed the entire evolution of employment at the top ranks of college sports over the last couple of DECADES. Boston College fired their head football coach because he interviewed for a job with the NFL’s NY Jets. This is complicated a bit by the fact that the Athletic Director who fired the coach is a longtime personal friend. The coach’s contract did not forbid him from interviewing for other jobs. It didn’t even state that other organizations would have to notify the school or seek permission to interview him. Boston College admits they fired the coach without cause. If the coach had accepted another job, he would have violated the contract and would have been forced to pay the university some money. If he had not taken the job, he would have continued to coach a program that has won two consecutive Atlantic Division titles under his watch.

College coaches interview or have informal discussions about other jobs all the time. Sometimes they take them, sometimes they don’t. Employment contracts at that level are financial arrangements. Period. There’s nothing ethical or moral about them. They just guarantee that if one party breaks the contract, the other gets compensation. On the other side of the coin, universities with big time sports programs fire coaches every year and have to pay out all or part of the remainder of their contract.

If this were the moral or ethical issue that BC’s athletic director of WaPo columnist Sally Jenkins were trying to make it out to be, BC wouldn’t be engaged in exactly the same behavior. Yeah, the AD who is all upset over this has done the same thing to, at least, one other university. The head coach of the women’s basketball team was the head coach at and under contract to Ohio University when he hired her away from that institution..

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 11:15 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.