College programs are far too ruthless in firing coaches
Being the head coach of a major college athletics program can bring a lot of glory if you are good at it. It can also be a thankless job in a brutal, ruthless industry if you are not particularly good at it. A couple of basketball coaches have found out the latter this week with some shockingly rough treatment from their programs.
The treatment? Immediately getting fired after their seasons come to an end, even before having a chance to meet with the media following their last loss.
The first instance happened earlier in the week when Utah State women's basketball coach Kayla Ard was fired following her team's loss to Boise State in the Mountain West Conference tournament.
She had to break the news herself when asked about how difficult it would be to rebuild following another tough season.
The same scene again played out on Thursday night when Stanford men's basketball coach Jerod Haase was fired shortly after his team's season came to an end. He gave a passionate speech in his news conference while surrounded by players and staff.
Haase had spent eight years at Stanford.
Both of these programs are well within their rights to make changes, especially given the records.
Haase was one game under .500 and never led the Cardinal to the NCAA tournament while Ard was 24-90 at Utah State, including a 9-51 record over the past two seasons.
Nobody is blaming the programs for wanting to start fresh.
But what is the harm in giving the coaches a day to get back home from their conference tournaments? Or not embarrassing them by having to go through a post-game news conference when they were fired just minutes after the game and season ended? It is dehumanizing and borderline cruel. It is almost like the programs want to go out of their way to punish the coach rather than simply make a coaching change.
It is not like they are hiring a new coach right away.
Athletics is a bottom line business and you need to win. That is understood. Coaches know that they are almost always hired to eventually be fired, unless they happen to be one of the few icons of the sport. But there is still a right and a wrong way to treat people who poured hours into the job and committed their lives to trying to win for your program. It is just a bad look to toss them aside so carelessly at the first possible second after a game.
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