By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season
BROOKLYN -- I've said it before and I'll say it again; in no other line of work is a man's employment status more public than in coaching.
Painfully public.
If you coach a professional team or a major-college basketball or football program, your future is probed, dissected, analyzed, predicted and about 100 times a day for certain stretches, tirelessly inquired about.
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And I absolutely hate the media, the industry in which I grew up, because of it.
The coaching circus turns good men into liars. Every December, when hard-working coaches dedicated to winning championships and helping turn young boys into productive citizens, the names of a few hot honchos get tossed around and they end up having to answer every day the same question, and it has nothing to do with Santa Claus or holiday wish lists.
In the case of the very likeable Brian Kelly, I have a bad feeling that many, many fans are going to end up feeling -- wrongfully -- betrayed by him.
Kelly as recently as five days ago told his players he wasn't going anywhere. He'd told reporters three days ago to get a handle on the swirl-o-meter as rumors for two weeks have now suggested that he is in fact going to be the next Notre Dame coach. Apparently, there are many reliable "sources close to the situation" these days.
And now that Kelly has told his players he will interview for the job, anyone who knows how easily he'll charm the black-watch-plaid pants off Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrink knows he's as good as gone.
Prior to yesterday's admission that he'll meet with the Irish, what options did he have? Should Kelly have told his players, "Yes, I expect to get the offer and I will take it?" Obviously, he couldn't do that, so what he has to do is ... lie. Of course he's going to tell his players and the scoop-hungry media that he and his family love it in Cincinnati, that they're not going anywhere, that they're focused on the next opponent and the next opponent only.
But if you worked in news, and you toiled at, say, a local TV station in a mid-sized market and suddenly the network called and wanted to bring you up to New York, the media capital of the world, what would you do? A fat contract and better perks awaited, as did a more challenging and rewarding work environment. Would you stay in Cincinnati? Would you openly tell your colleagues and even your supervisors you were thinking about another job?
Now, South Bend might not be Midtown Manhattan. Far from it, but whether you like or hate the Irish, it is the capital of the college football universe. It's hard to say no to that for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the fan base at your current job doesn't always sell out a 35,000-seat stadium.
So if Brian Kelly takes the Notre Dame job, please bite your tongue when you want to call him a liar and accuse him of betraying the citizenry of Cincinnati. Before you start throwing around curse words in the name of thine holy Bearcat, just ask yourself if you've ever made a career decision in which you placed someone else's interests ahead of yours. I'm guessing you haven't, and if you have, then perhaps college football shouldn't be your most pressing passion.