Borzi: Time to rethink notion of loyalty when it comes to big-time college coaches

BleedGopher

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per Borzi:

Tuesday, Fleck spoke at length about how his friendship with Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle convinced him to sign the extension. Fleck’s bottomless reservoir of slogans and jargon can be confusing, but his reasoning here was unmistakable. He and Coyle trust each other, and trust goes a long way. “He’s a man of his word,” Fleck said. “I love working for Mark Coyle. I mean that wholeheartedly.”

Coyle, in turn, envisions Minnesota as a destination for coaches, not a layover on the way to a legacy job. That’s a new one for Dinkytown, and a tough one to sell. Coyle already lost two coaches to better opportunities: softball’s Jessica Allister to Stanford, her alma mater, and women’s basketball’s Marlene Stollings to Texas Tech. Fleck is the test case of Coyle’s vision. “We feel like it’s an important step for our program,” Coyle said.

If Fleck does leave in a year or two, everything he said about loving his players and establishing Minnesota as a national brand in athletics will be thrown back in his face. He’ll be a fraud, like so many of them are. If that happens, he couldn’t row out of here fast enough to escape the people he hurt and disappointed.

We would like to believe Fleck and Coyle mean what they say. We would like to believe loyalty still exists, not as an abstract, but as something real and tangible. We would like to believe there’s still a place for it.

But loyalty can be a movable feast, and sometimes the banquet shuts down without warning. Circumstances change. Things happen that you never see coming. It could end that way for Fleck. Or maybe he and Coyle will surprise us all.

https://www.minnpost.com/sports/201...ty-when-it-comes-to-big-time-college-coaches/

Go Gophers!!
 

If he had wanted to jump ship perfect opportunity after this year. I was skeptical of him wanting to stay but PJF was unusually blunt talking about staying and building a legacy last week. Never say never but I’ll take him at his word just like his players and recruits do. Hell need a nice bump in salary within the next 10-12 months but if the season ends as I suspect it will the bump in gate and merchandise revenue should more than cover it.
 

per Borzi:

Tuesday, Fleck spoke at length about how his friendship with Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle convinced him to sign the extension. Fleck’s bottomless reservoir of slogans and jargon can be confusing, but his reasoning here was unmistakable. He and Coyle trust each other, and trust goes a long way. “He’s a man of his word,” Fleck said. “I love working for Mark Coyle. I mean that wholeheartedly.”

Coyle, in turn, envisions Minnesota as a destination for coaches, not a layover on the way to a legacy job. That’s a new one for Dinkytown, and a tough one to sell. Coyle already lost two coaches to better opportunities: softball’s Jessica Allister to Stanford, her alma mater, and women’s basketball’s Marlene Stollings to Texas Tech. Fleck is the test case of Coyle’s vision. “We feel like it’s an important step for our program,” Coyle said.

If Fleck does leave in a year or two, everything he said about loving his players and establishing Minnesota as a national brand in athletics will be thrown back in his face. He’ll be a fraud, like so many of them are. If that happens, he couldn’t row out of here fast enough to escape the people he hurt and disappointed.

We would like to believe Fleck and Coyle mean what they say. We would like to believe loyalty still exists, not as an abstract, but as something real and tangible. We would like to believe there’s still a place for it.

But loyalty can be a movable feast, and sometimes the banquet shuts down without warning. Circumstances change. Things happen that you never see coming. It could end that way for Fleck. Or maybe he and Coyle will surprise us all.

https://www.minnpost.com/sports/201...ty-when-it-comes-to-big-time-college-coaches/

Go Gophers!!

I'll quibble with the quote on Allister. Stanford is not a "better" job than Minnesota. It's at best a mediocre Pac-12 team permanently disadvantaged by strong perennial powers at UCLA, Arizona, Washington and now Oregon. There will be no championships of any kind there.
 

If he had wanted to jump ship perfect opportunity after this year. I was skeptical of him wanting to stay but PJF was unusually blunt talking about staying and building a legacy last week. Never say never but I’ll take him at his word just like his players and recruits do. Hell need a nice bump in salary within the next 10-12 months but if the season ends as I suspect it will the bump in gate and merchandise revenue should more than cover it.

Absolutely. The bump from the Penn State game alone might have covered the contract increase for the year.
 

My life experiance puts me somewhat at odds with Borzi's cynicism in this regard (and I am a firm believer in the theory that one can never be too cynical). What could be better than a job that you absolutely love, where you get paid millions of dollars, where you are beloved by your vast public and your boss is a person who shares your wierd approach and supports what you are doing? Why would you want to move? To what?
 


PJ Fleck is way, way overstated as a flight risk and, like so many other things, it's time to let go of that thinking.

Let's look at what we can know: In his early interviews (ie. before Minnesota) Fleck said his dream was to coach in the Big Ten. When he was WMU, he loved it there and wasn't in any hurry to leave. According to the Chicago Tribune, four P5 schools contacted him before Minnesota and he wouldn't even take an interview. All of them would have probably paid a lot more, and it was reported that Purdue was one of the schools. We know for a fact that dumped a truckload of cash on Brohm.

PJ was reportedly interested in Oregon. (An awful, awful fit but that's another story.) Oregon is a school that came oh so close to a National Championship but couldn't clear the hump. Let's say you want to be head coach at Ohio State or Michigan. If you could get Oregon to win big, you'd be a shoo in when a Big Ten dream job opened up. Yes, it's a strange world with PJ Fleck, when up is down and down is up and Oregon is a layover job for the B1G dream.

Fleck said he had a list of 8 schools for which he'd leave WMU. And Minnesota was on that list. Purdue wasn't, I'm guessing it was basically old school Big Ten with Ohio State and Michigan on top. But the point is this: If there were only 8 schools he'd even talk to when he was at WMU and one of them was Minnesota--well, there's only 7 possibilities left.

As I said in the pay the man thread, it's not about money--not that you don't have to pay him, but at some point it's more scorekeeping than practical reality. But seriously, WMU couldn't match the cash, but they gave him all the stuff he wanted. Passion, excitement, full stadium, belief in the program and what he was doing. The one thing they could not give him: The Big Ten and a clear road to a National Championship game. And where's he going to go? He's a midwestern guy at heart.

For me, the biggest test for Fleck's loyalty was Robb Smith. Fleck's the kind of guy that needs people he loves around him to do his best, and when it was painfully obvious that he wasn't getting the job done, what would Fleck do? Firing anyone is difficult, firing a personal friend is brutal. Would Fleck keep working with him, or would he have that difficult conversation for breakfast one morning? Personal loyalty vs. institutional and team loyalty. We know what happened there.

Obviously, I don't know Fleck personally. Maybe he does answer the phone if Notre Dame calls, but I'm really not that concerned about it. With one exception: A couple of weeks ago on the radio, Sid asked Fleck about leaving for a big time school and Fleck replied Minnesota is a big time school. I wanted to scream: Don't you get it yet? Here we have a coach that believes we're a big time Big Ten school and you're trying to talk him out of it? Sid, of all people, is the one person really old enough to know that.

My personal belief is that the one thing that could sway Fleck to pick up the phone is some of the press crap. And that would be a shame.
 

If he had wanted to jump ship perfect opportunity after this year. I was skeptical of him wanting to stay but PJF was unusually blunt talking about staying and building a legacy last week. Never say never but I’ll take him at his word just like his players and recruits do. Hell need a nice bump in salary within the next 10-12 months but if the season ends as I suspect it will the bump in gate and merchandise revenue should more than cover it.

Yep, if his goal was to cash in and get out of town there is no way he signs the extension during the season. There was nothing forcing him to do it, it wouldn't have seemed odd for him not to. He knew he wanted to be here and wanted to squash all the speculation so he did something he didn't have to do and signed the contract.

Fleck has been talking all along about how he wants to be here, how he wants to build something here. Our fanbase doesn't want to believe that is possible because of what Holtz did but hopefully they are seeing now that Fleck is in it for the long haul here. Nothing is ever guaranteed but if the U takes care of Fleck he has no real reason to want to leave and start over somewhere else.

Big Ten job, competitive salary, great facilities, a University that has embraced his brand and culture, great relationship with the AD, and as we are seeing already in year 3, this just might be a place he can contend at the highest level of college football. Why would you leave? I get that many coaches do jump from place to place in search of the next big payday, but that doesn't apply to all coaches and Fleck feels like one who sees the big picture.
 

PJ Fleck is way, way overstated as a flight risk and, like so many other things, it's time to let go of that thinking.

Let's look at what we can know: In his early interviews (ie. before Minnesota) Fleck said his dream was to coach in the Big Ten. When he was WMU, he loved it there and wasn't in any hurry to leave. According to the Chicago Tribune, four P5 schools contacted him before Minnesota and he wouldn't even take an interview. All of them would have probably paid a lot more, and it was reported that Purdue was one of the schools. We know for a fact that dumped a truckload of cash on Brohm.

PJ was reportedly interested in Oregon. (An awful, awful fit but that's another story.) Oregon is a school that came oh so close to a National Championship but couldn't clear the hump. Let's say you want to be head coach at Ohio State or Michigan. If you could get Oregon to win big, you'd be a shoo in when a Big Ten dream job opened up. Yes, it's a strange world with PJ Fleck, when up is down and down is up and Oregon is a layover job for the B1G dream.

Fleck said he had a list of 8 schools for which he'd leave WMU. And Minnesota was on that list. Purdue wasn't, I'm guessing it was basically old school Big Ten with Ohio State and Michigan on top. But the point is this: If there were only 8 schools he'd even talk to when he was at WMU and one of them was Minnesota--well, there's only 7 possibilities left.

As I said in the pay the man thread, it's not about money--not that you don't have to pay him, but at some point it's more scorekeeping than practical reality. But seriously, WMU couldn't match the cash, but they gave him all the stuff he wanted. Passion, excitement, full stadium, belief in the program and what he was doing. The one thing they could not give him: The Big Ten and a clear road to a National Championship game. And where's he going to go? He's a midwestern guy at heart.

For me, the biggest test for Fleck's loyalty was Robb Smith. Fleck's the kind of guy that needs people he loves around him to do his best, and when it was painfully obvious that he wasn't getting the job done, what would Fleck do? Firing anyone is difficult, firing a personal friend is brutal. Would Fleck keep working with him, or would he have that difficult conversation for breakfast one morning? Personal loyalty vs. institutional and team loyalty. We know what happened there.

Obviously, I don't know Fleck personally. Maybe he does answer the phone if Notre Dame calls, but I'm really not that concerned about it. With one exception: A couple of weeks ago on the radio, Sid asked Fleck about leaving for a big time school and Fleck replied Minnesota is a big time school. I wanted to scream: Don't you get it yet? Here we have a coach that believes we're a big time Big Ten school and you're trying to talk him out of it? Sid, of all people, is the one person really old enough to know that.

My personal belief is that the one thing that could sway Fleck to pick up the phone is some of the press crap. And that would be a shame.

Great analysis. Got me thinking a bit (always dangerous)...
Would be really curious to know who the other 7 teams on Flecks list are (or were). Are these teams “helmet” schools or is he honest enough with himself to only consider schools where his style of coaching might flourish.

I’ll bet most good coaches would like to envision themselves as having the potential to be the next Bear Bryant or Ara Parsegian. But let’s face it, the row the boat mentality would never work, or even be considered at OSU, Alabama, Michigan, ND, etc.
 

Obviously, I don't know Fleck personally. Maybe he does answer the phone if Notre Dame calls, but I'm really not that concerned about it. With one exception: A couple of weeks ago on the radio, Sid asked Fleck about leaving for a big time school and Fleck replied Minnesota is a big time school. I wanted to scream: Don't you get it yet? Here we have a coach that believes we're a big time Big Ten school and you're trying to talk him out of it? Sid, of all people, is the one person really old enough to know that.

My personal belief is that the one thing that could sway Fleck to pick up the phone is some of the press crap. And that would be a shame.

Fleck knows better. I think he knows what he can do here even if everyone else can't picture it because of our lack of success in the past 50-60 years. It just seems unattainable to most of us. Just being in the college football playoff picture seems like an acid trip. So Sid asking if he'd jump to a big time school is probably just a joke to Fleck. If anything....it probably makes him feel more secure and beloved....that a Big Ten program is assuming he'd jump ship for greener pastures.
 




Great analysis. Got me thinking a bit (always dangerous)...
Would be really curious to know who the other 7 teams on Flecks list are (or were). Are these teams “helmet” schools or is he honest enough with himself to only consider schools where his style of coaching might flourish.

I’ll bet most good coaches would like to envision themselves as having the potential to be the next Bear Bryant or Ara Parsegian. But let’s face it, the row the boat mentality would never work, or even be considered at OSU, Alabama, Michigan, ND, etc.

+1 I don't think he would be to allowed to remake the culture in his own vision at many of these schools.
 

PJ Fleck is way, way overstated as a flight risk and, like so many other things, it's time to let go of that thinking.

Let's look at what we can know: In his early interviews (ie. before Minnesota) Fleck said his dream was to coach in the Big Ten. When he was WMU, he loved it there and wasn't in any hurry to leave. According to the Chicago Tribune, four P5 schools contacted him before Minnesota and he wouldn't even take an interview. All of them would have probably paid a lot more, and it was reported that Purdue was one of the schools. We know for a fact that dumped a truckload of cash on Brohm.

PJ was reportedly interested in Oregon. (An awful, awful fit but that's another story.) Oregon is a school that came oh so close to a National Championship but couldn't clear the hump. Let's say you want to be head coach at Ohio State or Michigan. If you could get Oregon to win big, you'd be a shoo in when a Big Ten dream job opened up. Yes, it's a strange world with PJ Fleck, when up is down and down is up and Oregon is a layover job for the B1G dream.

Fleck said he had a list of 8 schools for which he'd leave WMU. And Minnesota was on that list. Purdue wasn't, I'm guessing it was basically old school Big Ten with Ohio State and Michigan on top. But the point is this: If there were only 8 schools he'd even talk to when he was at WMU and one of them was Minnesota--well, there's only 7 possibilities left.

As I said in the pay the man thread, it's not about money--not that you don't have to pay him, but at some point it's more scorekeeping than practical reality. But seriously, WMU couldn't match the cash, but they gave him all the stuff he wanted. Passion, excitement, full stadium, belief in the program and what he was doing. The one thing they could not give him: The Big Ten and a clear road to a National Championship game. And where's he going to go? He's a midwestern guy at heart.

For me, the biggest test for Fleck's loyalty was Robb Smith. Fleck's the kind of guy that needs people he loves around him to do his best, and when it was painfully obvious that he wasn't getting the job done, what would Fleck do? Firing anyone is difficult, firing a personal friend is brutal. Would Fleck keep working with him, or would he have that difficult conversation for breakfast one morning? Personal loyalty vs. institutional and team loyalty. We know what happened there.

Obviously, I don't know Fleck personally. Maybe he does answer the phone if Notre Dame calls, but I'm really not that concerned about it. With one exception: A couple of weeks ago on the radio, Sid asked Fleck about leaving for a big time school and Fleck replied Minnesota is a big time school. I wanted to scream: Don't you get it yet? Here we have a coach that believes we're a big time Big Ten school and you're trying to talk him out of it? Sid, of all people, is the one person really old enough to know that.

My personal belief is that the one thing that could sway Fleck to pick up the phone is some of the press crap. And that would be a shame.

Of course, the flipside to all this is "what else was he going to say?". :)

I mean, the hard part about it is you either believe Fleck or you don't. If you don't, no amount of rational explanation is going to sway your opinion.
 

You can't blame the media for raising the question.

How many times have we seen coaches sign extensions, pledge their loyalty to a program, and then after a big season, boom - they're gone for another job.

that - for better or worse - is essentially 'normal' behavior in big-time D1 sports. Sure, there are the guys like Coach K who stay at the same job for years - but there are far more coaches who jump from job to job on their way up the ladder.

the $64,000 question is whether Fleck is truly different. that, only time can tell.

Every coach has a 'dream' job. For Holtz, it was Notre Dame. Glen Mason would have gone to Ohio State in a heartbeat. the question is - is MN Fleck's 'dream' job or not. What is his 'dream' job, and how would he react if his dream school came calling, along with a check with all kinds of zeroes on it?
 




My opinion is I doubt he will stay here (or anywhere) 12+ years like a Ferentz or Fitzgerald. But I don't see him leaving until he feels he's done everything he can.

I also do believe his list of other schools he'd be interested in is very small. He'll be selective. He won't get nearly the freedom with RTB and everything else at a place like Notre Dame or USC and he knows that. He wants to do it his way 100%. A place like MN allows that.
 

I believe Coyle is the #1 reason for Fleck to sign and stay here. Coyle seems to be pretty good at what he does in supporting his coaches. Many schools who will want Fleck will be in a mess and likely have an AD or administration on a short leash. Not saying he won't leave, but I think he believes MN is a Big Time school.
 

I think the fact that we play in the West helped make this job attractive to PJ. Avoiding a division of OSU, Michigan, and Penn State definitely helps when trying to build up a program. So he's at a Big Ten school (which he has always wanted) with excellent facilities, has an AD he trusts (who is basically giving him the keys), and the fan-base is starving for relevancy (see the awesome crowd last game). Oh and he can get to Big Ten Championship games without having to go through all of the top East teams every year...
 

per Borzi:

Tuesday, Fleck spoke at length about how his friendship with Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle convinced him to sign the extension. Fleck’s bottomless reservoir of slogans and jargon can be confusing, but his reasoning here was unmistakable. He and Coyle trust each other, and trust goes a long way. “He’s a man of his word,” Fleck said. “I love working for Mark Coyle. I mean that wholeheartedly.”

Coyle, in turn, envisions Minnesota as a destination for coaches, not a layover on the way to a legacy job. That’s a new one for Dinkytown, and a tough one to sell. Coyle already lost two coaches to better opportunities: softball’s Jessica Allister to Stanford, her alma mater, and women’s basketball’s Marlene Stollings to Texas Tech. Fleck is the test case of Coyle’s vision. “We feel like it’s an important step for our program,” Coyle said.

If Fleck does leave in a year or two, everything he said about loving his players and establishing Minnesota as a national brand in athletics will be thrown back in his face. He’ll be a fraud, like so many of them are. If that happens, he couldn’t row out of here fast enough to escape the people he hurt and disappointed.

We would like to believe Fleck and Coyle mean what they say. We would like to believe loyalty still exists, not as an abstract, but as something real and tangible. We would like to believe there’s still a place for it.

But loyalty can be a movable feast, and sometimes the banquet shuts down without warning. Circumstances change. Things happen that you never see coming. It could end that way for Fleck. Or maybe he and Coyle will surprise us all.

https://www.minnpost.com/sports/201...ty-when-it-comes-to-big-time-college-coaches/

Go Gophers!!

That's a ludicrously small sample size. Look at Anderson, Hebert/McCutcheon, Lucia, etc. Seems like coached DO see this as a destination job. If anything, they get fired more often than leave.

As for PJ, we're getting a glimpse of his vision for MN. Just think what he can do with another 3-5 years of recruiting and program building. He'll bring us all along, kicking & screaming if need be.
 

Absolutely. The bump from the Penn State game alone might have covered the contract increase for the year.

They've been at a deficit all year. Also, didn't they give tickets away to student ST holders?
 

Minnesota is a big-time job. Its become an even better job. Here's my take, fwiw.....

While Fleck deserves great credit for the success of the team this season, let's not forget that without
a substantial commitment to football from the school, it does not happen. When Fleck was hired, it became apparent
that the U was finally willing to make the sort of commitment to football success that's truly needed. We haven't
had that sort of commitment since Bierman, really.

And, if he left, as long as the U continues to make that type of commitment, the program should still be successful.
The school learned its Brewster lesson. Going back a few years, Mason was a good hire. Kill was a good hire. Retaining Claeys was a good hire,
and Fleck has been a good hire.

I have every expectation that if Fleck left, they would make a good hire again, only with a continued commitment to the sport. Rest easy, everyone.
 

I'll quibble with the quote on Allister. Stanford is not a "better" job than Minnesota. It's at best a mediocre Pac-12 team permanently disadvantaged by strong perennial powers at UCLA, Arizona, Washington and now Oregon. There will be no championships of any kind there.

I think there were high fives all around the AD’s office when he ‘lost’ Marlene to Texas Tech. He probably said don’t let the door hit you on the way out!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


Minnesota is a big-time job. Its become an even better job. Here's my take, fwiw.....

While Fleck deserves great credit for the success of the team this season, let's not forget that without
a substantial commitment to football from the school, it does not happen. When Fleck was hired, it became apparent
that the U was finally willing to make the sort of commitment to football success that's truly needed. We haven't
had that sort of commitment since Bierman, really.

And, if he left, as long as the U continues to make that type of commitment, the program should still be successful.
The school learned its Brewster lesson. Going back a few years, Mason was a good hire. Kill was a good hire. Retaining Claeys was a good hire,
and Fleck has been a good hire.

I have every expectation that if Fleck left, they would make a good hire again, only with a continued commitment to the sport. Rest easy, everyone.

This
 

I think there were high fives all around the AD’s office when he ‘lost’ Marlene to Texas Tech. He probably said don’t let the door hit you on the way out!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's what I thought, too. Stollings was a bad example of "losing" a coach. Allister was much better. She was outstanding and left for emotional ties to alma mater, geography, or a belief she could over the hump and be national title contender at Stanford. Perhaps cash, too.

For the hand wringing about "losing" coaches here, we usually fire them for lack of success. I'd rather lose a successful coach to a helmet school than have to fire a failed coach.
 




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