There is nothing that compares with the high of getting a new job. The phone rings. You answer. It is the manager, who you met just a day or so before, calling to tell you that you've been selected over all the other applicants and to be in Monday morning at 8 AM. It can be an exuberant feeling or a moment of vindication. Your wife, your mother, your roommate... will have a sense of relief and you, for a brief shining moment will be held high on a pedestal.
If the job, however, is for a coaching position... well, then you may not want to start hanging a lot of family pictures on the wall just yet. Especially if that coaching position is for a team that expects to contend for a championship immediately. Such is the case for Mike Brown, the former coach of the Los Angeles Lakers who was just fired after a 1-4 start to the season. Are you surprised? If you are, then you obviously still believe in the greater good of mankind, but such is unacceptable on today's professional sports landscape. You're fired is practically a catch phrase - well, it is now with the Donald making millions off it, but it really is a serious matter. Nobody wants to get fired from their job. If you know it's coming, it can be torture. If it comes as a surprise it can leave you suddenly crippled. Coaching in sports though seems to carry a bit of that as something normal.
Few jobs in sports have that gleaming under the magnifying glass burn to them that a head coaching position has. When a sports franchise - or a university - is in a position seeking a new coach, there are two likely scenarios: replacing a guy who was failing to win, or replacing a legend who did nothing but win. Brown was asked to step into a pair of shoes he could not fill... or should I say, Phil? As in Jackson. The winningest coach in NBA history. Jackson, with his larger than life persona, went to L.A. with 6 championships in Chicago in his wake. Sure, he inherited a team of superstars, but they were underachieving, and Jackson's arrogant tough love college professor approach sucked them in like mosquitos to a bug light. He seemed to relish that pressure with a sense of feeling no pressure at all. Others simply cannot operate that way.
On the subject of the NBA, I think of coaches like San Antonio's Greg Popovich or Utah's former head coach Jerry Sloan, who do, or did not have the limelight savvy of Jackson, yet all the basketball knowledge... if not more. Rarely is there a doubt that the coach knows his x's and o's - otherwise, how did he get the job in the first place? It often seems to come down to something like a bad start to a season, or a prickly relationship with the team's franchise player, or an untimely losing streak just before, or just into the playoffs. This is the case of Mike Brown. Hired to take over for a legend... got bumped out of the playoffs in his first season... failed to win a preseason game in the next and got off to the worst start for the franchise in over 20 years. Not to mention the icy glares caught on camera from Kobe Bryant towards his coach or even his agitated interviews after the games. This after the team went out in the off season and added two superstars viewed by many as the missing pieces to the next championship puzzle. Oh - and it didn't help when the media was screaming "what's wrong with the Lakers" after they started with three straight losses. Team owners and General Managers will of course say that the media had nothing to do with Brown's dismissal, but we know better than that. Would the Laker brass have fired Brown if the media and fans were in unison with their patience and understanding while the team "figured it out"? I doubt it.
Head coaching a sports team, from little league to the pro's, is not a job for the faint of heart. From mothers to the media they must answer a bell they had better have a solution for, otherwise the pressure gets greater. The scrutiny becomes less forgiving. It is a responsibility on a world's stage that can bring the greatest of moments - as in a championship, or the sorriest - as in public failure.
Maybe that is what drives them. They get hired. They get fired. They thank the organization for the opportunity, then move on to the next. Maybe it's the guaranteed contracts, but I'd hate to think so.
There is nothing that compares with the low of losing a job. The phone rings. You answer. It is the boss telling you that you're fired.
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