Randy Shannon Fired!

The University of Miami has fired head coach Randy Shannon after 4 seasons at the helm. Shannon took over the program after Larry Coker was fired following the 2006 season. During his four years with the Canes he posted a 28-22 record that showed a lot of promise. He went 5-7, 7-6, 9-4 and then 7-5 this year.  Shannon was doing a great job of recruiting the south Florida area and was keeping the local standouts at home. Man this business is tuff. You would think that the university would give a coach the opportunity to get his players in and allow the first set of his recruits to at least graduate before they would fire a guy. However, it just doesn't happen that way anymore.

Everyone wants to win right now. If you can't get it done in 2 years you're on the hot seat. Winning at the college level is all about recruiting. You've got to get the players in order to win. All of the best recruiters are at the top of the pile, year in and year out. Jim Tressel, Mack Brown, Bob Stoops, Urban Meyer etc. These guys win every year because they have better players than everyone else. The X's and O's are important but getting the best athletes will always get you over the top. That's why I'm so disappointed about the firing of Randy Shannon.

He was getting all of the best players in Miami Dade County to stay at home and play at the U. That was going to pay big dividends in the long run. He also had a connection with the kids from broken home's too. Kids that had parents or siblings that were on drugs or had experienced major tragedies in their lives could go to him because he could relate to their pain. He was from the same place both physically and emotionally. Gary Smith wrote about  it best in a September 4th, 2007 Sports Illustrated article. Here's an excerpt from it:

 "Somehow he'd sense what was troubling them, sometimes before even they could. They took things to him that they wouldn't drag into white coaches' offices, not in a million years, nor even the offices of those black assistants who'd been raised by schoolteachers and ministers. Because those guys wouldn't get it, man, couldn't possibly know what it was like for Nanton to have grown up with a mother on crack and a dad missing from his life, or for safety Kenny Phillips to have three buddies who were shot and killed in separate incidents, all within a few weeks. They'd tiptoe around the raw stuff, those assistants, trying to say the correct thing, or spoon out something straight from the coaches' can. Not Randy. Players could take the worst to him, and the worst from him. They could talk to him in shorthand. They wanted what they could smell all over him: survival". I would encourage you to read the entire article to learn of the depth of this man.

We need guys like this coaching at the major college level because not only do our kids need to learn how to win but their character can be built by people like this. Winning is one thing, but being a mentor and teacher is more important. When the mentor and teacher has time to make an impact, the wins are sure to follow. I thought that he deserved at least one more year. What's your opinion?

Jay Graves