Mark Montieth: Rolling the dice

The honeymoon for Barry Odom began this week with the announcement that he has become the 38th man to try to make something of Purdue’s football program. Wish him well if you’re a Purdue fan, because the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of a divorce within four years.

Hey, history is what it is.

Then again, the odds are even worse for any coach who dares tie the knot with Indiana University’s football program, but look at what Curt Cignetti has done in his first season. Things are so blissful in Bloomington these days following a stunning 11-1 regular season that Cignetti has the luxury of complaining about not having home field advantage for the Hoosiers’ playoff game with Notre Dame on Dec. 20.

Last year at this time, nobody dreamed IU would have such a luxury, so Purdue fans deserve to be optimistic about Odom. You just never know, and if you can’t be hopeful during a coach’s first week on the job, there’s no point in even paying attention. But that’s also the problem. You just never know.

Hiring a coach is the most treacherous thing a college athletic director or professional general manager has to do. Aside from the rare occasions when the luxury of hiring an elite coach beyond reproach presents itself, you’re rolling the dice. No matter how smart you might be, no matter how many candidates you vet, no matter how many consultants you employ, you’re never far from crapping out.

There’s no formula for it.

Hiring a coach means hiring a leader, and leadership is the rarest quality among humans. Think of all the places you’ve worked. How many bosses have you had? How many would you have graded highly if given the chance to flip the script in an annual review?

A Time magazine article in September referenced research dating back to 2014 that revealed 82% of managers were incompetent. That means only 18% were good hires. Succeed at anything 18% of the time, and you’ll surely be looking for other work. Look around any professional league and ask yourself how many coaches of other teams you would like to have coaching your favorite. Probably about 18%. The rest seem like nothing special, destined for the scrap heap of “failures,” and that’s how it’s gone around here for the most part.

Case studies

Donnie Walsh, a Naismith Hall of Fame nominee who was widely regarded as an outstanding NBA general manager/president, hired six head coaches for the Pacers. Only two, Larry Brown and Larry Bird, won significantly and were not fired. Walsh had a built-in advantage with Brown, a former college teammate who tended to wear out his welcome and happened to be available to the Pacers—where he coached two teams to the conference finals before wearing out his welcome once again.

Two good hires out of six—33%.

The Colts have had 11 head coaches, excluding interims, since moving to Indianapolis in 1984. Only two—Ted Marchibroda and Tony Dungy—weren’t fired, although Marchibroda left when he wasn’t given a longer contract extension than he desired.

Two good hires out of 11—18% on the nose.

At Indiana, the only football coach to have taken a team to the Rose Bowl is John Pont, who coached from 1965 to 1972. He didn’t survive, either, getting let go in 1972 amid the controversy of racial unrest with a 31-51 record and just two winning seasons.

Since then, nine coaches passed through Bloomington before Cignetti arrived, only one of whom could be considered a success. Bill Mallory, who coached from 1984-1996, compiled six winning seasons and took six teams to bowl games. Still, he was let go in 1996 after his final two teams combined for just one Big Ten victory.

The only one of those nine coaches who wasn’t kicked out the door was Sam Wyche, but he stayed just one season, finishing 3-8, before the Cincinnati Bengals hired him away. We’ll never know how he would have done when he had to recruit rather than rely on drafts. So that’s one undeniably good hire (Mallory) out of nine—11%. Cignetti likely will lift the hiring win rate to 20%.

Coaching IU basketball is a much more favorable assignment than trying to make something of the football program, but the results have been mixed at best since Bob Knight was fired after 29 seasons.

Mike Davis took a team to the championship game of the NCAA tournament (with Knight’s players) but resigned in 2006. He admitted to getting in over his head by breaking in as a head coach with a major program. Kelvin Sampson was not in over his head, evidenced by his 74% win rate over the better part of two seasons, but was fired before the end of his second season for violating NCAA rules. Tom Crean coached two Big Ten championship teams but was fired in 2017, one season after his second conference title. Archie Miller lasted four seasons before he was let go. His successor, Mike Woodson, is now in his fourth season. Woodson’s fate has yet to be determined, but fans are growing impatient.

The four coaches between Knight and Woodson all compiled winning records. Three were fired and the other, Davis, resigned in a preemptive strike. Of those, only Crean could be regarded as a successful hire, although most fans seemed happy to see him go. And he was fired at Georgia after four seasons in which he won 21% of his conference games.

One good hire out of four, maybe—25%. With Woodson’s fate still to be determined.

Mixed record

Purdue basketball is the outlier, having had just two head coaches—Gene Keady and Matt Painter—since 1979. Keady coached six Big Ten championship teams in his 25 seasons and has been inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. Painter has coached five Big Ten champions in 19 seasons, including last season when his team reached the championship game of the NCAA tournament, and has a better overall win percentage than Keady.

Those two were hiring home runs. So, for that matter, was Keady’s predecessor, Lee Rose, who left after two seasons in which his teams tied for a Big Ten title and reached the Final Four.

Purdue football, however, has lived in the real world of college athletics.

Its most successful coach since World War II has been Jack Mollenkopf, who retired after 14 seasons with an 84-39-9 record and a Rose Bowl victory. Since then, 11 men have taken a whack at it. Only three succeeded long term and left of their own free will—Jim Young, Joe Tiller and Jeff Brohm. The other eight were dismissed, although none as quickly as Walters, who lasted just two seasons.

Three successful hires out of 11—27%. That’s beating the odds.

And now comes Odom.

He was introduced to the public and media on Tuesday amid the usual fanfare and said all the right things. In fact, he went a step further by offering a mix of bold proclamations and fundamental assurances. He didn’t offer a mic-drop moment as Cignetti did a year ago—he didn’t, for example, say “IU sucks”—but he set a tone.

“We’re going to build a championship team, and it’s going to happen very, very quickly,” he said, sounding much like Tiller did at his introductory press conference in 1997—a claim Tiller backed the following season.

Odom also pulled from the Management 101 handbook, such as when he referenced his success at his previous stop, UNLV. He called that experience “as complete of an organization and team functioning on all levels as I’ve been a part of. Through vision, through alignment and through communication, that will be the same case here.”

It sounded good, and he did have an aura of credibility. But two years ago, on Dec. 14, Ryan Walters was introduced as Purdue’s head coach. Bobinski praised his leadership and innovative approach. Mitch Daniels, then the university president, promised “a great, great experience.” Walters declared, “We’re going to put points on the board in bunches” and added, “You will be proud of the product we put on the field on Saturdays.”

It didn’t work out that way. Purdue finished 1-11 this season, defeating only mid-major Indiana State, and was shut out three times in Big Ten play. It lost its final game at IU, 66-0, the knockout punch that guaranteed his fate.

Walters represented a gamble because he had not been a head coach. But while relevant experience would seem an essential prerequisite for the leader of any major operation, there are always exceptions. Mollenkopf was hired off Purdue’s staff of assistants and had only been a head coach in high school. Painter had worked just one season as a head coach before Purdue hired him. Bird had no coaching experience whatsoever and was the NBA’s Coach of the Year in his first season.

Meanwhile, so many coaches who succeed as a head coach at a mid-major program don’t make it at a higher level. Darrell Hazell went undefeated in conference play at Kent State in 2012 and came highly recommended to Purdue Athletic Director Morgan Burke. He went 9-33 before being fired midway through his fourth season and won just three Big Ten games.

There is no formula.

But there’s always a chance it will work out. Not a good one, based on the percentages, but a chance. The chasm between the introductory press conference and reality can be massive, but Odom gives Purdue fans hope the honeymoon will last longer than a week. So, for that matter, does Cignetti.•

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Montieth, an Indianapolis native, is a longtime newspaper reporter and freelance writer. He is the author of three books: “Passion Play: Coach Gene Keady and the Purdue Boilermakers,” “Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis,” and “Extra Innings: My Life in Baseball,” with former Indianapolis Indians President Max Schumacher.