Dave Magarity -- Coaching in a Firestorm

With my stroll on the Runway to the Fashionable Four coming to an unexpected halt, I thought I would doing something that I am not normally know to do. I thought I would author a serious column.

How about that?

It's not often that I venture from my film critique world to get a little more cerebral, but this is a topic that is very sensitive to coaches all across America. And it's something that we have no control over.

The Final Four marks the close of a season, but while the spacing and boxing out will soon be over on the court, the struggle for positioning will continue in fraternity. The coaching carousel continues to go round and round.

The numerous openings create a scramble in the media, as the game of who can get it first takes shape and recently it reached new heights.

The title of a column, which I saw online, touched a nerve with me, as it read, "Huggins the coach who cried wolf." It's funny how when we as coaches make a mistake, the questions come from all directions, as people want answers.

But when a mistake is made on the print side of the timeline, there is a reluctance to say "foul." Instead, it's Bob Huggins that is in the wrong because he remained at Cincinnati, rather than make true all of the reports that he was "definitely" taking the West Virginia job.

It was amusing to read the various quotes, from so-called close friends, in these stories, which were to bring validity to the reports.

And as late as Sunday and Monday, reports were being updated, but still insisting that he was leaving the University of Cincinnati.

It's appropriate that this story took shape the same weekend of the Academy Awards for this media screenplay could have garnered an Oscar nomination for the best in comedy because Huggins had decided on Saturday that he was not going to leave his current post.

What tremendous sources used by the people in print. And this was not the first time this season that coach Huggins was posted up by a reporter, as he was depicted as taking shots at Cincinnati fans back in December.

And there is Tubby Smith, who did a phenomenal job this season, being labeled as a loser for the way he handled the transfer of Marvin Stone to Louisville.

I won't pretend to know all the facts surrounding each of those published report, but it's a sad state of journalism when good guys like Tubby Smith are labeled as a loser and Bob Huggins' thoughts are taken out of context to fuel the firestorm, which sells newspapers.

Our profession is not unlike others in that all of us, to a man, have our faults. None of us are perfect, but we don't deserve some of the labels that are pinned on our suits.

Just about everyday, if you take the time to look, you will find a story that takes shots at a coach's approach or, even worse, his ethics.

It's amusing to me that some of the same things that people in our business are chastised for are viewed in a different light when attached to other walks of life.

In Corporate America, if you are head strong, determined and speak out, you are considered a hero of sorts. You are labeled as being savvy and ambitious.

But if you take that approach in college coaching, you are called ruthless, cutthroat and, even worse, dirty. It's a joke.

Of course there is no demand for beat writers to follow around CEO's and there are no weekly Corporate America Teleconferences for reporters to dial into. And that's because newspapers aren't sold based on the daily travel habits of businessmen or what a CEO said to one of his employees.

There are so many excellent columnists and beat writers who look for the human-interest stories and take the time to search for the positives. But unfortunately there are also a lot of individuals that put a different spin on things to serve their story.

But coaches do understand that writers have a job to do also.

I am quite sure that Tubby Smith would have had no problem had a journalist written that the Marvin Stone situation could have gone a little smoother. And I am sure that Bob Huggins would not had been annoyed had the author written that coach Huggins would like to see more fans in the stands.

But using the term loser and four-letter explicates is a little over the edge. But, then again, over the edge is what sells papers. It's sad, but we have all become targets of that gun loaded with ink.

A while back, Huggins wrote in one of his CollegeInsider.Com coach columns, "Wherever there is a pen and a pad there will be a story."

How prophetic.