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Friday, December 7, 2007
Johnson’s perfect choice, but get back to us
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The perfect football coach is always hired. The perfect football coach is never fired. Often they’re often the same guy.
Paul Johnson was the perfect choice Friday. He won at Georgia Southern. He won at Navy. He has a blank slate at Georgia Tech. Blank slates represent limitless possibilities. All is good.
“If I thought there was a ceiling here and we couldn’t compete for championships, I wouldn’t be standing here,” Johnson said Friday. “The one thing that drives me is a chance to compete for championships. Everything is in place here to accomplish that.”
Smiles. Applause. Hope. This is the way it works on hiring day. A coach is coming off resounding success elsewhere, then walks into the news conference at his next job, looking, sounding, and certainly is introduced as the cure for all that ails you.
Then comes the first game, and the smiles and applause either continue, or the opening kickoff bounces off your returner’s head, at which time the guy who made the hiring crawls under the nearest buffet table.
Meet Paul Johnson. Perfect choice. Start the clock.
We can’t possibly know if he turns out to be George O’Leary. We can’t imagine he turns out to be Bill Lewis, who also was thought to be ready for the next step (he went 11-1 his last year at East Carolina, then 11-22 in three years at Tech).
For now, he’s perfect. This was probably as good a choice as Dan Radakovich could make, given the parameters he had to work with, given how Georgia Tech is perceived right now: a tough academic school in a BCS conference, in the shadows of Georgia, trying to swim out of the middle of the Division 1 pool toward the deep end.
Radakovich hired the coach that SMU and Duke couldn’t. He hired the coach that Michigan and Arkansas wouldn’t. That’s where they are in the pool. The Johnson hiring won’t generate the overwhelming buzz Radakovich hoped for. But if the Jackets win, fans, financial support and buzz will follow.
Buzz helped Alabama draw 90,000 fans to the spring game. Buzz didn’t help against Louisiana-Monroe. Or five other teams.
“If you win most people leave excited,” Johnson said. “It’s not rocket science.”
He had eliminated offers from SMU and Duke but considered staying at Navy. “I wrestled with it a bit last [Thursday] night,” he said. “But I felt the opportunity here was too great.”
He’s not sure what time he finally made the decision. A snowstorm had knocked out power in his Annapolis home. No lights, no clock, no heat.
Win here, and he’ll have thousands building him a fire. He won at the I-AA level (Georgia Southern), and then at Navy. Trying to project that at a school in a BCS conference is difficult. The perfect choice has yet to win a recruiting battle in Louisiana, make a halftime adjustment in Blacksburg or conquer that school in Athens.
Notre Dame thought it had the perfect choice. Even before Charlie Weis, there was Gerry Faust. He won his first game over LSU, 27-9, in 1981. Then he lost six out of 10. Five years of mediocrity came ended with a splat: Miami 58, Notre Dame 7.
Sometimes, it works the other way. Frank Beamer lost his first game at home to Clemson. He went 24-40-2 in his first six seasons. But he has gone to 15 consecutive bowl games since.
While Johnson wrestled with his next career move Thursday, I wrote about the Jackets’ protracted coaching search. It seemed odd that a Navy football coach would balk at taking the job, given his options: SMU, Duke, Navy. Predictably, the column struck a nerve in AngryBlogNation. There never was a suggestion that Tech shouldn’t hire Johnson, or that he could not or would not win. He gets what all new coaches get — a blank slate.
Johnson dealt with demanding academics at the Naval Academy. He won. He is Southern.
Radakovich called his new hire, “the best fit, the best choice, the best man” for the job.
We’re about to find out.
Permalink | Comments (201) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Hawks are improved — sort of
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Even in victory, the supposedly improved Hawks have stretches when they look shaky, bored, confused.
On offense, they clench their teeth while contemplating whether to share the ball or respond with an attitude of “me” instead of “we.” On defense, they treat your average pick-and-roll as if their opponent has invented the NBA’s version of a nuclear warhead on the fly. In general, with lackluster rebounding and mindless turnovers, they play with the energy level of a deflated Spalding.
They play like they’re trying to get their head coach fired.
Mike Woodson smiled, maybe to keep from fuming or crying. “No, no. I really don’t think our guys are trying to do anything like that,” he said, easing into a chuckle. “At least I hope they’re not looking at it in that light. I surely as a coach don’t think that’s the case. I just think they’re still trying to grow as a team.”
That’s often debatable. Did you see how the Hawks went from disinterested to dreadful on Thursday night at Philips Arena? They nearly blew a 19-point lead to the Minnesota Timberwolves, only the league’s worst team. Even so, if we’re drawing a pie chart of blame in this case, Woodson’s slice is smaller than the others’, which includes ownership, management and the players themselves.
As for ownership, you have that ongoing mess involving one owner suing the other eight. As for management, you have a slew of weird personnel decisions, but none surpasses general manager Billy Knight ignoring two point-guard sensations during recent drafts in Chris Paul and Deron Williams and a possible one in Mike Conley Jr. As for the players, you have their habit of giving a lackluster effort, which should be foreign to professionals — no matter what their issues, concerns or talent level.
Then there is Woodson, who has clashed with his young players at times, but who has spent more than a few moments in his four seasons with the Hawks addressing problems and offering solutions. He’s done so during practices, meeting sessions and games. He’s done so in the heavy tones of his college mentor, Bob Knight, but he’s also done so with the softer tones of his pro mentor, Larry Brown.
Still, the 8-10 Hawks lost to the struggling Washington Wizards, the pitiful Seattle SuperSonics and the equally wretched Chicago Bulls. There also was that near disaster on Thursday night. Not only did uneven play contribute to the Hawks giving Minnesota hope for just a third victory, but the Hawks needed a shot at the final buzzer by Joe Johnson to survive with a one-point victory.
Now the Hawks will face a Memphis Grizzlies team at home tonight that isn’t as horrible as Minnesota, but isn’t close to becoming good. It’s another game that the Hawks are supposed to win. It’s another game that will make you wonder one of two things if they lose or look sorry in victory again: Are the Hawks players really trying to get their coach fired, or are we just missing something here?
“I don’t think it’s so much of a disconnect between what [Woodson] wants us to do and us doing it. I just think we get caught up in the moment,” said Josh Smith, among the seven lottery picks on the Hawks, which are trying to end their streak of missing the playoffs at a current NBA-high eight seasons. “We just get so hyped during games. The atmosphere is jumping, and you have that adrenaline rush, and everybody just gets so anxious that sometimes we forget what [Woodson] wants us to do.”
Sounds reasonable. Which means Hawks players aren’t trying to get their coach fired as much as they are trying to overcome the zeal of remaining one of the league’s youngest teams. You add that to a bunch that still doesn’t have a true leader and still needs management to spend some of its considerable money to add another significant piece to the roster, and the Hawks are just average.
That’s an improvement since the Hawks usually are just bad.
Permalink | Comments (31) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore
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