Wouldn’t it be terrific if there really were a formula for identifying what works and what doesn’t when it comes to hiring a coach?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could know whether an unknown assistant coach like Bill Parcells or Jeff Van Gundy really does have the chops to make it as a boss?
Wouldn’t it be nice to know whether an almost certain shoo-in like Larry Brown was, in reality, a fiasco in waiting?
Well, to honor Todd Bowles’ new hiring as the Jets head coach, the Jets using their standard pathway of hiring a coordinator who never has been a top guy before, we decided to give it a try.
There have been 129 hires made by our nine sports teams in the 50 years dating back to Jan. 18, 1965 (excluding interim hires). Some of these men were first-timers. Some had vast experience.
Some were the same guy (Billy Martin, Al Arbour, Red Holzman) hired at different times by the same team, some were the same guy (Joe Torre, Bill Parcells, Dallas Green) hired by two teams.
We assembled two tables: one for how qualified a man seemed to be on the date he was hired, assigning points for past jobs, past successes, past championships, whether he had been a player or a Hall of Fame player.
And a second table for how that all turned out, assigning points for winning seasons, playoff seasons and championships, deducting points for losing seasons.
First, let’s take a look at the 10 most qualified coaches/managers, based on the day they were hired:
1. Pat Riley (four titles under his belt by the time the Knicks hired him in 1992)
2. Glen Sather (same exact credentials)
3. Al Arbour II (had won those four titles with the Islanders in his first tenure)
4. Herb Brooks (who coached both the Rangers and Devils having three NCAA titles and one gold medal on his resume)
5. Ralph Houk (the first man hired in this survey, who had terrific success his first time around in the dugout and was trying to stem the negative tide of history)
6. Lenny Wilkens (a Hall of Fame player and coach invited into an impossible situation)
7. Yogi Berra (especially when the Mets hired him, since he had a pennant winner for the Yankees under his belt)
8. Hubie Brown (previously a winner in Atlanta and an ABA champion in Kentucky)
9. Larry Brown (won an NCAA at Kansas, and lots of games everywhere he ever had coached prior)
10. Red Holzman II (based on his wildly successful first tenure)
What do you see there? Well there’s this: Not one of these hires ever won a championship in New York (Arbour and Holzman’s all came in their first tenure).
Sather (as coach, anyway) and Larry Brown had especially dubious tenures here. Riley came awfully close. None of the others did.
Now, the most successful, based on what they did here, listed without explanation because none will be needed:
1. Joe Torre (Yankees)
2. Al Arbour (first tenure with Islanders)
3. Emil Francis (Rangers)
4. Red Holzman (first tenure with Knicks)
5. Joe Girardi (Yankees)
6. Jeff Van Gundy (Knicks)
7. Bill Parcells (with the Giants)
8. Tom Coughlin (Giants)
9. Jacques Lemaire (first Devils tenure)
10. Davey Johnson (Mets)
Seventeen titles in that group. Some had experience (as we will see with Torre, not all of it good). Six of them had coached previously. But two of them — Parcells and Van Gundy — came in as virtual newbies. So was Buck Showalter. So was Pete Carroll.
On the other end of that spectrum? These were the five worst, in reverse order, worst to fifth-worst:
1. Joe Torre (with the Mets)
2. Mike Milbury (Islanders)
3. Terry Collins (Mets)
4. Doug Carpenter (Devils)
5. Dallas Green (Mets)
So where does that leave Bowles? Using our formula, he gets five points for being a top assistant and five for having been a pro.
With 10 points to his name when he is introduced next week, that puts him in a category that includes Johnson, Francis and Willie Randolph…and also Wes Westrum, Max Zaslofsky and Lorne Henning.
Better check back in a year or three.
Whack Back at Vac
Alan Surchin: Have you noticed how much the first picture of Todd Bowles in The Post looks like Willis from “Diff’rent Strokes?” That would make Woody Johnson the congenial but clueless Mr. Drummond. It’s too perfect.
Vac: And it’s certainly not too early to imagine the first of many times poor Mike Maccagnan asks, “Whatchoo talkin’ about, Woody?”
Michael Biasello: Rex Ryan is all bluster and ego. Exactly the same act he displayed at the outset with the Jets. Astonished he landed another coaching job, but the NFL is a coaching carousel regardless of performance. He and his brother have coached teams that have progressively gotten worse the longer their tenure.
Vac: Oh, you noticed that, too?
@GregJKrieg: Separated at birth? Mike Maccagnan and @MikeVacc!
@MikeVacc: Lordy, even my mother thinks so. Can I hire Nick Saban?
Mike Ostrowski: Would a young actor just getting started in movies be allowed to call himself Robert De Niro even if that was his real name? Surely not. I believe the first item on the new commissioner’s agenda should be resolving the “Boog Powell (no relation)” situation before any lasting harm is done to the (or, at least, my) national pastime.
Vac: Sigh…don’t you miss the days when THIS could be a raging sports topic?
Vac’s Whacks
So the Giants hired the hero who ran their Super Bowl defense to replace the bum who ran their Super Bowl defense. Got it.
I just can’t believe how badly the baseball writers screwed up the Oscar nominations the other day. Shameful.
The old stand-by “Willie Mays falling down in the outfield” was custom-made to describe what we saw in Denver last weekend from No. 18.
One of Rob Manfred’s first missions as MLB commissioner ought to be explaining why it continues to be OK that the Wilpons are allowed to run the Mets like a thrift shop and baseball doesn’t seem to mind even a little bit.