One of the alumni affiliations I claim is The University of Minnesota. And after living in the Twin Cities for 32 years and now traveling back frequently to Minneapolis on business, I still keep up with the local news. Today the University of Minnesota hired a new football coach , a guy named Tim Brewster.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I was sports editor for my high school newspaper and I covered high school sports for the local media in southern New Jersey before I moved to Minnesota to attend graduate school. Today, I fancy myself as somewhat of a sports historian even though I have become disenchanted with men’s major college athletics (do we really need 30 plus football bowl games?) as well as professional sports (I’ve grown weary of overpaid men behaving badly). So I now tend to view sports teams and coaches through a management and leadership lens rather than that of a fan.
What is curious to me about the appointment of Tim Brewster as the Gophers’ head coach is that he is the first University of Minnesota head coach that I can remember , and my memory goes back to the Murray Warmath era at Minnesota in the ˜60′s , who shows up with apparently ZERO head coaching experience. His most recent post was tight ends’ coach for the Denver Broncos , a position coach. News reports tout his major asset as being a good recruiter because he recruited quarterback Vince Young to the University of Texas when he was an assistant to head coach Mack Brown.
From a task relevant competency standpoint, there is a big difference between the competencies needed to be a position coach and those required of a head coach. The analogy would be the difference between the requirements of a first line manager of a Fortune 500 company and those of a CEO! I’m not kidding. In most cases, organizations fill the chief leadership position by hiring someone who (a) has performed the role successfully before at a similar organization , in this case, was previously a Division IA head coach; (b) held the chief leadership position in a smaller organization , that is, was a head coach at a Division IAA school; or (c) held a “second-in-command position at a similar organization and is ready for a promotion , in other words was the offensive or defensive coordinator at another Division I school. This appointment deviates from customary hiring practices and there could be a variety of reasons.
Perhaps Joel Maturi, Athletic Director at the University Minnesota, sees this guy as a diamond in the rough whom he believes deserves a chance at this level; or worse case scenario, Brewster was not the first choice , other more qualified candidates might have turned down the opportunity. And the list , based solely on conjecture at this point , could go on.
One observation that I’m certain others will make is that Brewster was hired by the same athletic director that decided to sign previous head coach Glen Mason to a four year contract just one year ago only to fire him after Minnesota’s bowl loss to Texas Tech a couple of weeks ago costing the university $2.2 million in a buyout of the contract as well as $1.3 million in deferred compensation.
So Tim Brewster is the new guy and here is what he will face from a management/leadership perspective:
- He will need to hire an entirely new coaching staff. The key in filling these vacancies is to surround yourself with the best possible people. The question is will talented people come to Minnesota to be on this guy’s staff when he has never been a head coach before?
- He will need to establish a vision or identity to aid recruiting. Others recognize his recruiting ability, but if does what he knows , namely recruiting , it takes time away from other big picture activities.
- He will have to deal with the media.
- He will need to get results quickly , in the Big Ten, that means win.
- He needs to establish credibility with returning players based not just on his position power of “I’m the head coach.
Tim Brewster seems like a nice guy. However, he will need to demonstrate critical task relevant competencies that he has never had to demonstrate before. I wish him success, but he has a steep learning curve ahead.
The Hiring of a CEO – That is Head Coach