EVERY sports fan worth his salt knows that the basketball coaching profession is a dog-eat-dog business. “Here today, gone tomorrow” sports coaches usually experience during the course of their X-and-O tenures.
Even if he carries brilliant credentials, no coach is indispensable, be it in the professional ranks or the high school or collegiate levels.Job security there is none for a coach can be fired at any time, even during halftime of a game.
Remember the late Fort Acuña, who was unceremoniously fired by Toyota at halftime of a Philippine Basketball Association game against Crispa during the early eighties when he refused to field in Tamaraws star Robert (Sonny) Jaworski?
The timing might have been so bad, or too humiliating to Acuña, that he committed suicide several years later. Handing the pink slip to a basketball coach is painless if his team has been losing through the years.
Yet in this “quick-fix” era, just a single lousy season and it could be a “one-and-done” disaster for the bench tactician.
Even consecutive winning seasons that do not include a title finish is unacceptable to some.
In the end, it’s easier (or more fun) to dismiss the basketball coach than the 12 (or 15) players on his basketball team.
What about the “loyalty” factor?
It’s said that loyalty is valued highly in the corporate world. But this rarely comes to play in the sports business, where an athlete can be traded or let go in a hurry and a coach can never expect to be guaranteed a “lifetime” job with one team.
“What have you done for me lately” might be one question that a team owner would ask of his coach when his next contract is up. A previous championship or two may be appreciated but contract negotiations will still revolve around his current accomplishment.
The greatest coach in U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA) history, Phil Jackson, won a record 11 titles with the Chicago Bulls (six) and Los Angeles Lakers (five).
When Jackson’s back-to-back champion Lakers, however, were swept in four straight games by the eventual NBA titlist Dallas Mavericks during the 2011 in the Western semifinal playoffs, he was not offered a new contract.
With this mind, I wonder why there’s much controversy in the firing of Ricky Dandan as the Unibersidad ng Pilipinas coach in the ongoing UAAP competitions.
Dandan was dismissed and deservedly so. Whether it was instigated by the UP Alumni Association or the dean of the College of Human Kinetics or even the sports-loving street sweeper in the sprawling Diliman campus, nobody cares.
The bottom line is Dandan had lost 15 straight games with the Fighting Maroons, having gone 0-7 in the second round of last year’s UAAP competitions and 0-8 this year.
Dandan took over the UP reins in 2012. The lone victory of his brief 1.5-year UP tenure came against the University of the East, 63-48, on August 19, 2012. The win broke a 15-game losing skid by the Maroons (since 2011).
Overall, Dandan was 1-21 with State U. Dandan deserved to be fired and Momma need not insinuate that his son’s successor was an ingrate for accepting the job.
Rey Madrid may owe Dandan some loose change for his previous post on the UP team but coaching is a dog-eat-dog profession. In sports, loyalty is an afterthought. Winning is everything.