JONES: What we really need in our next head coach

According to the athletic department, the new head coach of the football team will be named sometime in the next eight days. As the search heads into arguably its most important and stressful week, the team’s followers eagerly await the decision while trying to anticipate who the choice will be.

Before I continue, though, if you could all flip to the back page (or direct your browser back to the Spec sports home page), there’s an article detailing what the athletic department is looking for in the ideal candidate. Take a minute to read the facts and what athletic director M. Dianne Murphy said on the matter. Then, come back. Definitely come back.

Even a brief skimming will clearly show you the things Murphy says the search committee is looking for: a candidate who is a strong leader, has a high football IQ, knows how to win, and knows how to recruit for Columbia.

Now, this all sounds impressive and like the athletic department is giving you a lot of information, but to be honest, it’s kind of crap. Read those first three qualifications again: Strong leader. High football IQ. Be a winner. To me this is nothing but stating the obvious.

With regard to finding a strong leader, in her interview with Spectator on Dec. 2, Murphy said specifically, “Coach Wilson was a fabulous leader. … He’s a good man, he’s a good person, he was a great leader. We just didn’t get it done and this is a business.”

Clearly, being a strong leader alone isn’t enough. And quite frankly, it seems to me as if this is a qualification of all coaches. Not even just football coaches but every coach everywhere. Does anyone really look for a coach who can’t lead the team?

So not only does being a strong leader seem like a given for coaching a team of 110 guys, it also doesn’t seem like having this quality in our next coach is going to do anything extra for Columbia if it’s not something that was lacking in the last regime. It’s simply a level to maintain—and an obvious one at that.

The second point seems similarly useless to me. “We want someone who has a great football IQ,” Murphy said. “What does that mean? It means, has a great knowledge of football—understands offense, defense, special teams, those kinds of things.”

Again, would the plan ever be to hire someone without a good knowledge of football? Or someone who only knew about one facet of the game and would have to leave the other two up to the assistant coaches? This, too, seems a little obvious to me.

And finally, wanting a coach who knows how to win? Someone who has been successful? Big surprise. Again, no one hires a coach who sucks, just hoping that he’ll tank the program because he knows how to do it so well.

I get that these are important things to look for in a candidate—and I’m not trying to minimize that—but it doesn’t seem to me that they have much to do with Columbia’s coaching search in particular. These things are always important.

Murphy’s remaining point is really the only one that I find says anything useful and Columbia-specific about the search for a new coach, but it’s definitely the key one: recruiting. Recruiting is obviously a big part of the job at any school, but in Columbia’s case, it’s a bit of a different ball game.

Being a part of the Ivy League puts a lot of restrictions on Columbia and its ability to recruit great players. There are no athletic scholarships with which to entice prospects, and no matter what you believe about the relationship between athletics and admissions, there is still an academic standard to be upheld here that doesn’t necessarily exist at other schools. There are no functionally illiterate athletes getting paid to come here and play football.

So recruiting for Columbia is actually a specific thing to focus on when screening candidates. It won’t be something that all coaches will know how to do or be any good at. In my opinion, this might be the most important thing to find in our new coach. The idea of recruiting for Columbia kind of reminds me of that scene in the movie “Miracle” when Herb Brooks says, “I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones.”

Columbia needs the right players for the program, and it’ll take a special eye to find them. It’s not only about finding the best football players you can convince to come here, but it’s finding the ones with the right attitude to play in this culture and developing a combination of players that will mesh well on the field.

One or two stars won’t cut it. (Of course, “star” is a relative term given the level Columbia plays at in the big scheme of college football.) After watching this past season, I think there’s definitely room for more of a rhythm and connection between the players on the field, and that’s where the most realistic improvement lies. It’ll take a very specific type of coach—one with a good eye and understanding of the program and its existing structure and players—to have the right vision and to be able to recruit all the necessary players to make it happen.

Victoria Jones is a Barnard College senior majoring in French.
sports@columbiaspectator.com