Angelique Chengelis of the Detroit News, the only Detroit reporter who got the story right yesterday, writes today that he has been fired citing a RR assistant as her source. What a strange situation. Bradon has a four-hour meeting with RR yesterday. If it was his intent to fire him before the meeting, why a four hour meeting? The company I worked for as been chopping people left and right for 4 years and the termination meetings last about 2 minutues. I wonder if Brandon went into the meeting not knowing if he was going to fire RR or not? Mike's theories make a lot of sense also. I agree with Terry's observation that alums operate uder the assumption that every hot coach would be doing cartwheels to coach at their beloved school but that reality is a different matter. If RR is gone, I suspect he might be breathing a sign of relief that he is leaving the AA insane asylum. For a variety of reasons, many his fault but some not, things did not work out here but not for lack of effort. He failed here but proved at Tulane and WVA that he is a good coach and he will land on his feet and coach sucessfully somewhere else in the future
No tears for RR from me. My lay-off meeting took all of 15 minutes.....after I gave the company 23 years and I had become good friends with the big guy laying me off and I don't know if I ever mentioned it here but I literally saved his life one day back in the mid 90s at a client lunch.....having to successfully perform the Heimlich maneuver on him after he had been choking on a chicken sandwich for a good 30 seconds without breathing. All of that and my severance money was just a "smidgeon" below what RR is going to wallow in for three years. :wink:
With the Pitt job open I could easily see him landing there. It might be that they waited to see if there was any interest there in him before dropping the hammer. Strange way to handle what was by all accounts a foregone conclusion. Another possibility might have been his severence deal. As I recall M had to chip in to settle the breach of contract suit by W. Va. Then there was the NCAA violations. Who knows what obligations either side had at the end?
Well, Brandon had his presser. RR gone. No new coach is place. A "national search" to begin. And recruiting ends in 30 days. Probably good our AD was not in charge of D-Day. Our troops ships would have landed in Argentina and today's conversations on Skybox would be in German.
Yeah when you are firing somebody, you bring them in and fire them. Best not to praise them for their efforts, tell them you are sorry or give out any more information than is absolutely required. While they are in your office they get their desk cleaned out and you get their key(s), IT guy locks them out of computer system and if you are a large enough company security escorts them from the building. Bob Davie when he fired Joe Moore did everything possible wrong, including telling him what a great coach he was and that he was letting him go because he was too old. Ugh, HR nightmare that lead to the lawsuit that ND lost.
Harbaugh has interviews with the 49ers and Dolphins. Uh......don't the Dolphins still have a coach? How would you like to be that guy. One day you come to work and everyone is gone and the furniture has been removed...
Dolphins are now a player, and they still (as JO'Co points out) have a coach!! Supposedly offering up to 8M/year to Diamond Jim. Oh yeah and if he says yes they will still have to go through the motions of interviewing a black coach, how'd you like to be that guy. I'm thinking that if I'm black and the Dolphins want to give me a cursory interview to satisfy the Rooney rule, I want them to fly me and my family 1st class to Miami put us all up in a first class hotel, with Gonzo as our personal assistant, and comp us for a week of wining, dining and fun in the sun.
How about when I saw the GM with a couple of empty boxes prior to my meeting with him and the President/owner to discuss ostensibly "next year's budget".. Subsequently found out I wasn't in "next year's budget" and those boxes were for me. Nice.....very nice. Not fun to be that guy either.
I'm guessing it's similar to what a kid feels when he commits to play football for a school and after one or two years he's told that because he didn't make the 2 deep their pulling his scholarship and using it to sign more incoming recruits.
I can feel for your situation you went through. I can also feel for the guy that has to break the news. I have been in both positions. Thankfully, I was not supporting a wife and kids when one of my first jobs evaporated in 1975. In 2005, I was a Lead Instructor and was handed three packages to distribute to three of my instructors.I had the pleasure of handing out raises 15 months earlier. The bottom fell out and I had to deliver the bad news as well. It is not fun whether you are on the giving or receiving end.
Sorta like when my boss had said a couple of days before like he did so many times...."great job".... I have been told that he has said that laying me off was the toughest thing he has ever had to do......and I do believe that. I suspect in football it's no easier but certainly is more commonplace I think. And the HFB coach at major universities get's a severance package that makes things just a tad easier.
Absolutely. A good manager works for both ALL of his employees and his company. He is forced to keep the employee's moral up even if he knows what is coming. If he lets the employee know, and that employee is coming back in to work for the next few days, they might have a postal employee that is free to come and go without question. Not a good situation.
The tough part was Tom that they reiterated "great job"....it's not you, it's us....etc.....and it wasn't so much me in reality. Times were uncommonly uncertain at the outset of the auto bankruptcy slide in late 2008 and lost jobs were the order of the day in SE Michigan in those days.
Two true stories: - My cousin returned home from work forty years ago and found an empty house...literally. He was a 42 year-old fool who had married a 17 year-old girl. While he was away at work, her family went into the house and removed everything...even the light bulbs... - Twenty years ago, a pal of mine went into the big boss's office to receive his 20 Year Service Award. They took his picture with the Big Boss and gave him a nice gift to go along with his award. When he returned to his office 30 minutes later, there were armed security guards standing at the door and he was locked out of his own office. He was allowed to empty his desk to get his papers, then the guards escorted him off the property. They informed him that he had been fired when he got outside. Happy 20th Anniversary!
" to receive his 20 Year Service Award." That one resonates Jo'Co..... I was laid off a week before the office Christmas party at which the boss always gave out the years of service awards. My lay-off was such a shock to people I am sure I was the huge elephant in the room when he gave out the awards that year.
According to recent reports, it appears Harbaugh will be going to the San Francisco 49ers. Not a major surprise.
He's a left coaster at heart it seems. From an article which quotes John Elway......who by the way thought JH would stay in college: "Elway has indicated his next coach should be a believer in Tim Tebow, the rookie who started the last three games after supplanting Kyle Orton at quarterback." Alrighty then.....who's next for Denver? Urban?