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Sunday, January 14, 2007
Gailey never embraced at Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Their football coach has just interviewed for two NFL jobs, and unless my hearing has betrayed me I’ve noted no groundswell of fear/outrage from Georgia Tech fans. This, I submit, leads to an obvious conclusion:
A lot of Tech fans hope Chan Gailey leaves.
Gailey is, as has been noted, an odd case. He’s respected enough as a football man to be viewed as a viable head-coaching candidate by not one but two of the NFL’s proudest franchises, and yet he has worked here five years — never having a losing season, never failing to grace a bowl — without having won over his constituency. And if, having just completed the best of the five seasons, he hasn’t done it by now, there’s little chance he will.
There is about Gailey something that calls to mind the Al Capp cartoon character Joe Bftsplk, who walked under his own black cloud. Even in a year in which Tech won the ACC Coastal title, the achievement was diluted by wretched end-of-season losses to Georgia (again!) and Wake Forest. Even when the Jackets gave West Virginia a tougher time than anyone anticipated in the Gator Bowl, more than a few folks were left wondering why, if Taylor Bennett was capable of throwing for 326 yards against a stout opponent, Gailey hadn’t turned to him when Reggie Ball was having one of his many dreadful days.
For as much as Gailey has won at Tech, he can’t really win for losing. His detractors — the former letterman Taz Anderson proudly leads the choir — are as impassioned as Jim Donnan’s ever were, and Donnan wound up getting fired at Georgia after four consecutive winning seasons (but three consecutive losses to Tech). Gailey is 0-5 against the Bulldogs, and the Jackets’ best chance to break the drought just went begging.
It has long been a source of astonishment that a man so bland could engender such strong dislike, but somehow Gailey has. He replaced the wildly popular George O’Leary and hasn’t worked overly hard to endear himself to Tech’s moneyed Old Guard, a body that likes (and expects) to be embraced. He lost to Georgia 51-7 in his first season and, for both better and worse, hitched himself to Ball’s wagon at the beginning of Year 2. And then, just as it appeared the Jackets had finally broken through, they lost to Georgia and Wake and West Virginia and set their backers’ teeth to gnashing anew.
“As fan bases go, coaches will always have their supporters and will always have their detractors, and that’s the case with coach Gailey,” said athletics director Dan Radakovich, whose stated position is that he hopes Gailey stays and is proud to employ a coach who’s a desired commodity. But the cynic in me wonders: Wouldn’t a part of Radakovich, who arrived from LSU just after Dave Braine’s flashpoint extension of Gailey’s contract, welcome the chance to hire his own man? (And wouldn’t his first call be to Jimbo Fisher, the LSU offensive coordinator who just moved to Florida State?)
The belief here is that it would be best for both Tech and Gailey if one of these NFL jobs comes through. (It’s thought he has a very good chance with Miami, where his competition is thought to be Jim Mora, of whom you’ve also heard, and a lesser one in Pittsburgh.) Gailey could leave honorably, having given Tech five winning seasons but never a Top 25 finish, and Radakovich would be free to find the man to take the Jackets onward and upward.
And maybe Gailey feels it’s time to go. Otherwise, why spend the last week shuttling between high-profile interviews? Why not tell the Dolphins and the Steelers, “Sorry, but I’m happy where I am”? Maybe — surely — Gailey grasps what has become increasingly apparent: That a significant number of Tech backers won’t be happy until he’s gone.
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