Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Two good reads
Gregg Bell on the Sonics trial. The Sonics are making the argument that Seattle pols have been playing dirty pool, which would not be surprising. As I've said before, there are no angels in the stadium game.
Andrew Leigh, an Australian economist, opines on the economics of sports. He links a paper by Goodall, Kahn, and Oswald, which studies the impact of coaching changes in the NBA. Leigh's commentary:
Andrew Leigh, an Australian economist, opines on the economics of sports. He links a paper by Goodall, Kahn, and Oswald, which studies the impact of coaching changes in the NBA. Leigh's commentary:
They find a large positive impact: if a team replaces a coach who never played NBA basketball with one who played many years of NBA All-Star basketball, it can expect to move six places up the ladder.The paper seems worth putting in your stack of things to read. Leigh has a blog too, which looks interesting.
One possible explanation is that a coach cannot push top players to their limit unless he has competed at their level. Or perhaps effective NBA coaching involves a considerable degree of ego-management, and only a former champion can win the players’ respect. Either way, the results have important implications for any high-performance workplace where the CEO must manage a large number of experts. From law to technology to universities, could it be that the best boss is a former all-star?
Labels: coaches, NBA, sports economics
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
One More Econo-coach
LSU's Les Miles is profiled by Kelly Whiteside in USAToday. He comes across as an aw shucks feel good type. That the story reveals Miles has an economics degree from Michigan merits the post. The story also provides some cannon fodder to mitigate the "Crazy Les" stereotype he inherited from his gamble at the end of the Auburn game.*** As the latter link illustrates, critics can trip over their own feet trying to take down a guy. Check it out and play "spot the contradiction"!
***Down by3 1 point with 15 seconds left, he had his team attempt a pass into the end zone with the clock running, eschewing a 39 yard field goal opportunity to put the game into overtime win it on an all-or-nothing kick. They caught the pass with 1 second left (must I point out that it would have been equally good with 0 seconds left?), and won the game, rather than attempt a kick which would produce an X% & (1-X)% opportunity of winning or losing on one play. Miles got two bites at the cherry, and didn't need the second. You do the math. (Edited thanks to DB's correction on the score at the time Miles made his decision. See comments.)
***Down by
Labels: coaches, college football
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Black coaches
A congressional hearing took place yesterday on the issue of black coaches in college football. Jesse Jackson, the NCAA's Myles Brand,Kansas State's AD, and others particpated. The tone of some remarks reported here was emotional, and various remedies from bribing schools to suing them were proposed. Here are the numbers:
While the report suggests that the mood at the hearing was quite negative on this issue, I see things differently. Here just south of tobacco road, the roster of basketball coaches in the basketball-mad ACC was once all-white. Today, Clemson, FSU, Georgia Tech, Miami, NC State & UVa, along with northern outpost Boston College all have black head coaches. That's a majority of minorities, folks. Even the disaster at Maryland after the Bob Wade saga could not hold back the tide in this booster-heavy, but more importantly, highly competitive league.
A statistic I'd like to see is the number of black assistant head coaches and coordinators at D1A schools, relative to a decade ago. This is the wellspring of future coaching talent. If it is much better stocked with black talent than ten years ago, and I believe it is, the six current coaches are just the tip of the iceberg. If it can happen in tobacco road hooops, it can happen anywhere.
Of the 119 Division I-A schools, only six have black head football coaches. There are even fewer in the lower divisions: five in Division I-AA, two in Division II and one in Division III. The figures exclude historically black colleges.Of the six D1A schools, there are black coaches at Buffalo (Gill), Kansas State (Prince), Miami (Shannon), Mississippi State (Croom), UCLA (Dorrell), and at my alma mater, Washington (Willingham). UCLA has a history of incorporating black talent in a discriminating market that goes back to Jackie Robinson, who played football there before breaking the color barrier in major league baseball. Buffalo is a new program at which the allegedly discriminatory network of boosters is largely absent. This might contribute to their having a black athletic director as well. The economic theory of discrimination implies that non-discriminators will profit by employing talented people who the discriminators ignore. Buffalo and UCLA being members of this small club of six falls in line with the theory. But where are the other non-discriminators, and what is Mississippi State doing on the list? There may be a bit more to the story than what's being reported.In addition, there are only 12 black athletic directors in Division I-A, and not a single major conference commissioner is black.
While the report suggests that the mood at the hearing was quite negative on this issue, I see things differently. Here just south of tobacco road, the roster of basketball coaches in the basketball-mad ACC was once all-white. Today, Clemson, FSU, Georgia Tech, Miami, NC State & UVa, along with northern outpost Boston College all have black head coaches. That's a majority of minorities, folks. Even the disaster at Maryland after the Bob Wade saga could not hold back the tide in this booster-heavy, but more importantly, highly competitive league.
A statistic I'd like to see is the number of black assistant head coaches and coordinators at D1A schools, relative to a decade ago. This is the wellspring of future coaching talent. If it is much better stocked with black talent than ten years ago, and I believe it is, the six current coaches are just the tip of the iceberg. If it can happen in tobacco road hooops, it can happen anywhere.
Labels: coaches, college football, discrimination
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
GM v. Coach: Optimal Disagreement
Marty Schottenheimer's firing last night came down to conflict with general manager A.J. Smith. SI.com reported Schottenheimer as saying
Coaches and GMs walk a fine line. Some very successful partnerships, such as Joe Gibbs and Bobby Beathard in the 1980s were reported to be constantly on the brink. As economists, we like pointing out how there is an optimal amount of just about everything, even "bad" things like pollution. Disagreement between coach and GM fits the tag line. If they agree on every personnel matter, the GM is superfluous. If they disagree too much, well, you get Schottenheimer-Smith or Fisher-Reese.
In earlier days, the coach-GM duties often resided in a single person. (Lombardi may have been a better GM than a coach, but that's a different post.) Once revenue growth made specialization of the jobs and "decision rights" the norm, there has been continual friction. This friction led to a movement in the 1990s where successful coaches sought "total control" over football-related matters (the same happened in other sports also). Although the idea worked in a few cases such as Belichick (the second time around), it tanked for coaches like Mike Holmgren. I have preliminary evidence that combining the roles, on average, hurts performance. This makes some sense for several reasons. One is shortage of time for coaches to evaluate players. With combined roles, coaches must also struggle with personal relationships influencing personnel decisions -- cutting disliked players too quickly or holding on to liked players too long. The latter problem is especially acute in the salary cap era where holding on to good, but not great players for too long can quickly lead to salary cap purgatory. The Reese-Fisher breakdown likely had a lot to do with such issues.
"There is and has been no relationship" with Smith. Since when? "How long's he been here?' ...In San Diego, the GM survived the feud. A month ago, bad feelings between head coach Jeff Fisher and GM Floyd Reese led to the "resignation" of the the longtime GM. In the Reese v. Jeff Fisher bout, it appears that owner Bud Adams, who liked both, viewed a good coach as harder to replace than a good GM. In the Schottenheimer v. Smith case, the coach's age already made him a short-timer, so the GM won out.Schottenheimer tightened up the time frame a bit, saying: "In the last couple of years, there has been very little, if any, dialogue."
Coaches and GMs walk a fine line. Some very successful partnerships, such as Joe Gibbs and Bobby Beathard in the 1980s were reported to be constantly on the brink. As economists, we like pointing out how there is an optimal amount of just about everything, even "bad" things like pollution. Disagreement between coach and GM fits the tag line. If they agree on every personnel matter, the GM is superfluous. If they disagree too much, well, you get Schottenheimer-Smith or Fisher-Reese.
In earlier days, the coach-GM duties often resided in a single person. (Lombardi may have been a better GM than a coach, but that's a different post.) Once revenue growth made specialization of the jobs and "decision rights" the norm, there has been continual friction. This friction led to a movement in the 1990s where successful coaches sought "total control" over football-related matters (the same happened in other sports also). Although the idea worked in a few cases such as Belichick (the second time around), it tanked for coaches like Mike Holmgren. I have preliminary evidence that combining the roles, on average, hurts performance. This makes some sense for several reasons. One is shortage of time for coaches to evaluate players. With combined roles, coaches must also struggle with personal relationships influencing personnel decisions -- cutting disliked players too quickly or holding on to liked players too long. The latter problem is especially acute in the salary cap era where holding on to good, but not great players for too long can quickly lead to salary cap purgatory. The Reese-Fisher breakdown likely had a lot to do with such issues.
