< Also a golf pioneer | Main | Texas football play of the year >
January 15, 2007
The Todd Graham affair
My, the risk of managing a minor league professional football team certainly is not pleasant at times, is it?
As this John Lopez column relates, Conference USA Coach of the Year Todd Graham -- who in his first season at Rice University led the Owls to their first bowl game since the early 1960's -- stunned the Rice community last week by announcing that he was leaving after only one season to replace his former boss, Steve Kragthorpe, as head coach at the University of Tulsa.
Hightailing it after only one season, switching jobs between conference members and leaving Rice without a head coach and most of its football coaching staff during the middle of recruiting season -- Graham pretty well handled this job change about as shabbily as possible (Whew! Just wait until the Marching Owl Band gets ahold of that material for its halftime show at the next Rice-Tulsa game). And as Lopez's column and Rice alum Charles Kuffner report, supporters of the Rice football program are certainly not happy with Coach Graham.
Of course, many of those disgruntled Rice supporters overlook the fact that they ran off a loyal and good football coach who had served the Rice program honorably and effectively for many years in order to hire Coach Graham in the first place. Oh well, chalk it up to the dysfunctional marriage (see also here, here and here) of university management and minor league professional football.
All of which reminds me of an anecdote that legendary Houston sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz passes along about NFL coaching icons, George Halas, Vince Lombardi and George Allen:
In the mid 1960's, the Los Angeles Rams had hired Allen off of the coaching staff of Halas in Chicago.Halas was furious that the Rams failed to ask for his permission and threatened to take Allen to court. At a league meeting after the issue was resolved, Halas used the occasion to vent his anger at his former defensive coach.
"George Allen," Halas raged, "is a man with no conscience. He is dishonest, deceptive, ruthless, consumed with his own ambition."
At that point, Vince Lombardi leaned over to the owner of the Rams and whispered: "Sounds to me like you've got yourself a helluva football coach."
By the way, Coach Graham better hope that his career choices are better than the last Rice football coach who elected to take another job after just one season on South Main.
Posted by Tom at January 15, 2007 5:46 AM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)