Bucs simliar to Irish
Coylin Boylan
Boylin's Banter
If you've been following off-season NFL news even somewhat closely over the past couple of weeks, then you have to feel bad for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Here's a team that is stacked with talent up and down its roster, has great potential for success in upcoming seasons, and has a high profile head coaching vacancy — that nobody wants to fill.
Wait a minute — that sounds a little familiar doesn't it?
Yes, that's right; just in case you disgusted fans and alumni out there thought that Notre Dame held an exclusive monopoly on the embarrassing head coaching search, the head honchos over in Tampa are out to prove you wrong.
No, it's probably not the "second greatest job in the world" (behind coaching the New York Yankees, of course), and it doesn't have more than 100 years of history on its side, but the fact that Tampa Bay head coaching candidates are running from the job like it's the ebola virus is nonetheless surprising.
It could be just an eerie coincidence, but it appears that the Buccaneer ownership has followed the Notre Dame blueprint for the bungled coaching search — drawn up only months ago — right down to a tee.
Consider the following:
Both teams took major public relations hits when their main targets embarrassed them in front of a national sports audience. Notre Dame was humbled when George O'Leary "forgot" that he never really lettered in college football, while Tampa put their franchise in the hands of Bill Parcells, who suddenly decided he'd rather go fishing in Florida than coach a football team there.
Both teams unsuccessfully tried to lure John Gruden away from the Oakland Raiders and ran headfirst into the furious beast that is Al Davis. Notre Dame finally decided that they couldn't wait until the end of the NFL season to court Gruden, while the Tampa owners realized that Davis' rumored asking price of two first round picks, a second rounder and their first born children was a little too steep.
And along the way, both teams were rejected countless times by other candidates, who may or may not have even been considered for the vacancy in the first place.
At least Notre Dame eventually ended up with a quality coach in Tyrone Willingham. One gets the feeling that Tampa's options are looking more and more grim every day.
To put the issue in perspective, consider the fact that Notre Dame supporters get offended when guys like Steve Mariucci and Mike Shanahan profess no interest in the head-coaching job. To date, Tampa Bay's refusals have come from, among others, Marvin Lewis and Ralph Freidgen.
To be fair, Lewis was adequately qualified, and probably deserved the job as much as anyone, but Ralph Freidgen? How sad is the state of affairs within your program if a college coach with only one year of experience is politely declining your offer?
So far, the only person who has actually declared interest in the Tampa job is 76-year-old Marv Levy.
No offense to Marv, but ending up with a 76 year-old man as your new head coach has all the excitement of interviewing Lou Holtz for the position and having him recommend his son, Skip, instead.
Tampa Bay needs to right this ship as soon as possible because its premier players are reaching the prime of their careers, and the prestige the Bucs built up as a franchise is growing smaller every day.
Maybe the Bucs will eventually nab Gruden from the Raiders' grasp. Maybe they will land a highly regarded college coach. Maybe Parcells will change his mind (again) and return to lead the team to glory.
But whatever ends up happening, one fact has become quite clear during the past several months: Football coaching jobs just don't sell themselves like they used to.
Contact Colin Boylan at cboylan@nd.edu. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Thursday, February 14, 2002
