When A Legendary Leader Leaves Your Legendary Program, What Do You Learn?

Imagine . . . in the short space of just four months, two of the most coveted coaching jobs in college sports at two iconic programs became vacant. Can you imagine the number of resumes that must have flooded the Athletic Director’s office at the University of Alabama when Head Coach Nick Saban announced in January his retirement from the team he had led to six national titles?

Or, how about what happened last week when, following another early exit from the NCAA Tournament, John Calipari announced he was leaving Kentucky for a new job leading Arkansas’ men’s basketball program. Calipari won a national title in 2012 and went to four Final Fours at Kentucky and, just as Saban did at Alabama, built a recruiting powerhouse that gobbled top-ranked recruiting classes and sent dozens of players to professional sports wealth and fame. In recent years, Calipari had enjoyed less success and, in leaving the Wildcats, remarked that the program “needed a new voice.”

When Saban left, his boss, Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne, told the media he’d have Saban’s replacement announced within 72 hours, such was his confidence in the attraction of his program’s brand. He actually found one sooner in Washington’s Kalen DeBoer, but word spread that several coaches demurred when reached by Byrne or his proxies. That included Florida State’s Mike Norvell, viewed as one of the country’s elite younger coaches. Norvell, who led the Seminoles to a 13-1 record and ACC championship in his fourth season at FSU, declined to say whether he was offered the Alabama job. But he acknowledged, even if indirectly, to ESPN that he was better off at Florida State.

“You respect the place. You respect the position,” Norvell said of Alabama. “At the end of the day, it still comes down to the right fit. It still comes down to the place you want to be.”

What didn’t “fit?” Was it the extraordinary, and overblown, expectations that would come with following Saban? Was it the irrational sense that Alabama fans have about what any loss means?

After Calipari tendered his resignation, Kentucky’s athletic director, Mitch Barnhart, went after talent he felt was worthy of taking the helm at Rupp Arena. He was turned down by Scott Drew, the man who built Baylor’s great program as well as Connecticut’s Dan Hurley, who is busy building a nice little dynasty of his own!

Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan, who previously led Florida to two national titles, also let Barnhart know he was happy where he is.

Over in Alabama, Byrne ended up hiring an incredibly accomplished leader in DeBoer—a serial winner who reached the Championship game this year where his Huskies lost to Michigan—while Kentucky hitched its wagon to former Brigham Young University coach Mark Pope, a onetime Kentucky player who has yet to win an NCAA Tournament game as a coach.

All things being equal, it’s better to feel unabashed pride in your organization’s brand and culture than abject disregard. But there’s a lot of gray area in between these two extremes that organizations need to tend to if they want to live and compete in the real world.

For example, coaching candidates have long memories. When they thought about Kentucky, did Drew, Hurley et al have visions of joining the Pantheon of Kentucky’s tradition of great coaches, or did they have visions of joining Tubby Smith, who led Kentucky to one national championship in 1998 and a perfect 16–0 regular season conference record in 2003 but fell out of favor and left because he had failed to win even more Championships?

Saban indicated that Alabama’s culture had drifted into territory with which he was increasingly uncomfortable. On the one hand, he took a team that had struggled early in the season to the College Football Playoffs. On the other hand, Saban was disappointed with the way his players handled defeat. “You gotta win with class. You gotta lose with class,” he said after losing to Michigan. “We had our opportunities to win the game and we didn’t do it, and then showing your ass and being frustrated and throwing helmets and doing that stuff … that’s not who we are and what we’ve promoted in our program.”

For Saban, the icing on the cake came when he began talking with his returning players about the coming year. “Our program here was always built on how much value can we create for your future and your personal development, academic success in graduating and developing an NFL career on the field,” Saban reflected.

“And, then, maybe 70 or 80 percent of the players you talk to, all they want to know is two things: what assurances do I have that I’m going to play because they’re thinking about transferring, and how much are you going to pay me? …I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying that’s never been what we were all about, and it’s not why we had success through the years.

“So I’m saying to myself, maybe this doesn’t work anymore…?”

If two great college coaches can struggle as their cultures change under their very noses, all of us ought to look with a more critical eye at the cultures within our own organizations. And then we need to ask Saban’s question: “Is this working for us anymore?”

And just as important, “Will it work for those we want to bring into our organization?”

Don’t wait for the great leader to leave before asking the question.