Marketing Consulting Blog

I'm jumping out of the business and marketing bag for just a moment to talk about sports and something that has been frosting my ass for awhile. Since I live in Kentucky, I hear this garbage all the time about Tubby Smith and wanted to share some facts to question both sides of UK fans' arguments about their former coach. Here's an e-mail I sent to one of the local radio sports talk show hosts (Lachlan McLean) in hopes that he shares this on the air.
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First off, let me state for the record that I’m a HUGE Louisville fan and loathe the Cayuts. With that said, I’m worn out by the UK contingent whining about Tubby Smith not being able to recruit and/or coach. Which one is it? Far be it from me to defend a former UK guy, but here are a couple of arguments to consider.

If somebody says he can’t recruit, how did he produce 9 NBA players in 10 years? We’re talking NBA—not NBDL, overseas, or any minor league pro basketball. In six plus years of Rick being here at UofL, we have ONE player in the NBA (Francisco Garcia). Here’s Tubby’s list of NBA players for good measure so no one can question the number:

1. Tayshawn Prince
2. Keith Bogans
3. Gerald Fitch
4. Erik Daniels
5. Chuck Hayes
6. Kelenna Azubuike
7. Rajon Rondo
8. Randolph Morris
9. Jamaal Magloire

Of that bunch, the most heralded players were Rondo and Morris—the rest were not super sought after. So that begs the question—is it recruiting or coaching? One could easily argue, with 9 NBA players in 10 years, it was not recruiting.

If it’s coaching, how did Tubby guide them to 1 NCAA title, 3 Elite 8 and 2 Sweet 16 appearances? He never lost a first round game at UK. In the span Tubby was coach at UK, he won 76.0% of his games. The all-time percentage for UK Basketball is (drum-roll please) . . . 76.3%! Compare his winning percentage at UK to that of (mouse face) Mike Kryzewski’s at Duke (77.8%), and he’s not that far off (1.8%). If Kryzewski is considered one of the best college coaches, where does that leave Tubby? What that means, with all things being equal, Kryzewski would win a whopping one extra game in every 55 played based on those numbers. You don’t have to be a genius to realize that’s not very significant.

Let’s compare Tubby’s winning percentage to other coaches in UK’s history:

• Rupp won 82.2% of his games at UK (which equates to winning 1 more game in every 16 than Tubby)
  
• Joe B Hall--74.8%
  
• Eddie Sutton—69.2%
  
• Rick Pitino—81.9% (which equates to winning 1 more game in every 17)
  

So looking objectively at UK basketball historically illustrates the point that Tubby’s performance was very much in line with the tradition at UK. This notion that Tubby “underperformed” emphasizes how unrealistic UK fans truly are. When placing these facts into their proper context (remember: it's a UofL fan analyzing them objectively), it makes you wonder what is in UK fans’ cool-aid to make them believe they deserve so much more. Look at the numbers before making the argument that Tubby can’t recruit or coach, and it’s pretty clear neither of those are valid points.

The reason for sending this e-mail and asking these questions is I am sick and tired of hearing UK fans whine, belly-ache, and complain about how terrible things were under Tubby. Ok, the style wasn’t the most enjoyable, but who cares? You won games at an extremely similar clip to what you have all-time so quit whining already!

It's not my nature to contribute to anything UK related, but the facts tell a far different story than UK fans would like everyone to believe, and it’s time for them to own up to those facts.

Unless you live under a rock or pay zero attention to the sporting landscape, you've heard the news that Bobby Petrino is leaving Louisville to take over the Atlanta Falcons' head coaching position. Steve Kragthorpe from Tulsa will be announced as Petrino's replacement later today.

At first, like most, I was angered about this because I felt lied to and betrayed by Petrino throughout the year. He turned down the Oakland Raiders' head coaching job last year to the tune of 10 years and $52 million then signed a lucrative extension with UofL that, upon his insistence, included a $1 million buyout. Most reasoned that if he were going to turn the Raiders down, he must be extremely sincere in wanting to stay here in Louisville. He repeatedly told the media that "this is where I want to be," and he even joked about other open positions of late (see the post game of the Orange Bowl when asked about the Alabama job should Nick Saban have turned it down), and I honestly believed the guy was uninterested in leaving UofL for ANY job.

Oh well, it is what it is so we must now move on without the man. With that in mind, I am going to take a stab at being objective to figure out why Atlanta is so appealing to Petrino and why it's actually not so hard to blame the guy for taking the job.

First off, it's no secret that Atlanta has wanted to move Michael Vick. The "experiment" that is Michael Vick isn't working, and Vick has been referred to as a "coach killer." I'm not sure he's quite that, but he's definitely a talent that is hard for "traditional" football coaches to maximize his many talents. Oakland was rumored to be interested in acquiring Vick this past season. So imagine this scenario playing out--Atlanta trades Vick to Oakland for their first pick in the upcoming draft and another player. Brian Brohm announces he's declaring for the draft instead of returning for his senior season with the Cardinals. You see where I'm going already . . . Atlanta takes Brohm with the first pick of the draft. Matt Schaub is a quality backup already on the roster that could serve as the starter until Brohm is ready to take over the reigns at QB.

Next, Atlanta currently owns the 15th pick (I believe) in the 2007 draft. Should Calvin Johnson (Georgia Tech) or Dwayne Jarrett (USC) be available there, the Falcons would likely use that pick to obtain a potential game changing receiver. Two brand new pieces that figure to be around for awhile are now in place. Mix in current players such as Alge Crumpler (TE), Warrick Dunn (RB), Jerious Norwood (RB), and Ashley Lelie (WR) and things start to make sense as to why this job is very appealing for someone like Petrino.

Atlanta is a playoff caliber team, and he could further feed his enormous ego by having some substantial early success in the NFL. If that happens, he's set as an NFL coach for years to come even if they can him after four or five seasons in Atlanta. Once you're in the professional coaching carousel, and you've exhibited some success at some point, it's not hard to get hired on by other teams because they recycle coaches like society recycles aluminum and paper. There's no recruiting, practice time, or academic restrictions involved like there are in college. For that, I can't blame the guy even though I wanted him to be here at UofL for decades. I envisioned national titles, streets being renamed after Petrino, facilities being built in his honor, etc., but I was obviously sipping the kool-aid a little too heavily. In an objective reality, if given the same choices under similar circumstances, I would likely do the same thing.

It all hinges on what to do with Michael Vick though. I don't think Petrino's style will mesh well with the ultra talented yet temperamental QB. It's not that match-made-in-heaven scenario you look for when matching a coach and quarterback, but that doesn't mean it's an impossible situation. Vick has a cannon for an arm and is lightning fast--that much is obvious, but he hasn't had a coach capable of maximizing his talents while instilling the discipline to make consistent good decisions. One thing that Petrino preaches, despite his occasional personal slipperiness, is discipline. During the Orange Bowl, UofL was whistled for one penalty for five yards. That's almost unheard of from an aggressive team playing in a big game, but it speaks to the discipline the man demands from his players. Will that sink in for Vick? Who knows, but I don't look for Bobby Petrino to fall on his face despite the personal angst I feel at this moment. He's a damn good football coach that should succeed because of his preparation, discipline and offensive mastery of the game. He's a tireless worker, and people who work extremely hard at something rarely outright fail (there's your business tie-in for the day).

While I'm personally frustrated by the move, I can objectively understand it. Thanks Coach Petrino for everything you've done for the University of Louisville and its football program. I can't say I'm necessarily wishing you well today, but I'm grateful for the things you accomplished here, and it was a fun ride while it lasted. I'll likely be cheering for you and the Falcons in due time, but the sting hasn't worn off enough yet for me to say "good luck."

Among my circle of friends, we have a running inside joke about our favorite sports teams achieving "sponsorship" from a fictitious company called "Medicore" when they're average at best. We don't accept mediocrity (the company name's obvious origin) very well, and we hate it when some coach, GM, or owner tries to sell us on the fact that the team we follow isn't as bad as it truly is. The same could be said for business--there are a lot of businesses masquerading around under the Medicore sponsorship umbrella.

I look at a company like Penn Station, and it screams "medicore." Their food isn't very good, they boss the customer around trying to "train" them into ordering the way THEY want you to, and they are annoying with their insistence on calling their second rate French fries "fresh cuts." #1, the fries are fries. They're not very good ones at that--frequently overcooked with that flavor of overused cooking oil built in. No thanks!

Another medicore sponsored business is definitely Wal Mart. Yes, Wal-Mart is insanely popular, but it's a chore to shop there. Standing in line for a long time isn't an efficient use of anyone's time, but it seems as though Wal-Mart has done a good job of making people feel as though they are getting this huge bargain by shopping there.

Engage in a little math with me for a second. If you had to put an hourly rate on the value of your time, what would it be? In my consulting business, I frequently charge $100/hour so let's use that as a baseline. If I go to shop at Wal-Mart and find 20 items that would save me an average of $2 on each item (very generous assumption), my initial savings are $40. With me so far? Ok. When I go to check out, I'm going to stand in line for a minimum of 20 minutes on most occasions. If you take $100/hour and figure that rate up for the minute, you're looking at $1.67. 20 minutes x $1.67 = $33.40 so my original big time savings have been dwindled down to $6.60. To me, that's not worth the hassle Wal-Mart inflicts upon me to save a little money so I avoid shopping there regardless of the potential net-savings. The only way I'll even think about going in there to buy something is during a snow storm (there's one within walking distance of my home) or very early in the morning when no-one else is shopping (like 2-4 AM). Just because a business is popular doesn't mean it's good. It might just mean people haven't valued their time appropriately and engaged in the little math equation we just went through.

Okay, you knew I couldn't get through this without a sports take. Let's look at Rick Pitino this year--he's consistently trying to sell University of Louisville basketball fans that this year's team is more like an Escalade in the making when most can see very clearly it's more like a Kia Rio. It's truly average and ordinary at best. It has achieved that dreaded "sponsorship" from Medicore, too. I hate it when my sports teams achieve this dreaded status.

Years ago, when John L. Smith (a.k.a. "Janelle") was the head football coach here at UofL, we would passionately debate whether he could take us to that next level of football. I was even called an “ass” on an Internet message board for voicing my displeasure in the Liberty Bowl bathroom following another bowl game loss down in Memphis. Granted, John L. had taken Louisville from 1-10 the year prior to his arrival to five straight bowl games, yet his record was 1-4 in those bowl games; the lone win coming in the rather below average Liberty Bowl. It was Medicore sponsorship at its finest, and it was unsettling for many of "us." One or two guys within our group would always try to spin it to put lipstick on the pig so to speak, but it wasn't working for the majority who aspire to compete at big time levels. As things have turned out, we have a coach in place today that gets it (Bobby Petrino), and he rarely uses excuses when things don't go as desired. He can be found on the sideline chewing guys out for missing an assignment after a first down when he felt the play should have resulted in a touchdown. That's aspiring to greatness. Janelle would ignore the fact that his teams had zero discipline and were among the leaders in penalties each year (a trend which followed him to Michigan State and resulted in his eventual firing after this season finally concluded). As long as his teams finished with a winning record, all was seemingly okay in his world.

The Cincinnati Reds, my favorite professional baseball franchise, are kings of striving for mediocrity and spinning it to look as though they are trying to build a winner. I won't bore you with the dealings of the past and broken promises made by the organization, but I will share one recent transaction that should sum it up: Mike Stanton! Talk about the epitome of mediocrity, and he's in the twilight of his career so it's going to be a stretch to get even average production out of the guy. It appears as though the boycott of the new stadium will live another year--not until they can finish a season above .500 will I step foot into their new park which is sad because I enjoy visiting the Queen City.

Bottom line: many companies and sports teams merely aspire to mediocrity so that's exactly what they get. It seems as though the majority is okay with that because they don't need things that are really good--just good enough will do. What's my underlying point in all of this? When you set out to do something, don't settle for "sponsorship" when you can achieve greatness. The choice is there to make so why bother messing around with half-assing something? Do it or don't; there is no in between if greatness is what you aspire to. Achieving a fictitious sponsorship in this vein isn’t going to help you achieve anything worth taking about.

Once again, I'm overly frustrated with UofL's basketball program. We lost to UMass at home last night which makes our record 1-2 versus Atlantic 10 schools this year. Before I get into this, UMass has a nice squad, but they shouldn't be marching into Freedom Hall and taking home a victory. This comes on the heels of a rather poor showing over the weekend where the Cards played three mediocre teams in three days (all at home) and struggled with each one of them.

Usually, I try not to call people out, but it's time to address the issue head on. Rick Pitino has lost his fire to coach I'm afraid. He made a ton of money with the Celtics, he's getting $2 million plus per year here, and it's deadened the value of a lucrative salary as motivation. He's made it already! He's not hungry like he was at UK or Providence. Yes, he took Louisville to the Final Four two seasons ago, but last year's team and this year's collection of athletes look absolutely lost, they don't defend well like "typical" Pitino teams, there is no improvement noticeable, and the player rotations leave the majority of fans scratching their heads.

This is a prime example of someone's salary being too high which shows in the final product. Would your company allow its leader to get away with this? If so, what about that particular person allows them to get away with such? If they own the company, that might explain part of it, but they would eventually be forced to sell or retire if their objective was to keep the company afloat.

If a major corporation repeatedly missed its numbers, and the CEO gave flimsy excuses every time as to why, that CEO would be replaced. That's all I'm asking in this situation--hit your numbers (Rick) and honestly tell the public what is going on. Enough with the excuses and mind games--we're not falling for it anymore. The product you're producing is very below average, and it's not delivering the value your customers paid for and you promised.

Many have criticized me for taking such a hard stance on this topic so early on in the season, but I took a similar stance during Denny Crum's last season--it's either the coach gets replaced or my season tickets will not be renewed. It's come to this unfortunately. I was very excited when they hired Pitino, and I was thrilled with the Final Four run, but I refuse to waste my time watching a piss poor product that costs a lot of money for two straight seasons. The value equation is all out of whack, and that falls back on the CEO (head coach). It's his "corporation" to run. He's CEO of the basketball team, and he's paid very handsomely to be that. He’s no different from Bob Nardelli at Home Depot or Terry Semel at Yahoo! They need to go too.

If you have a better solution to this dilemma, please share it.

If you've visited this blog before, you probably saw my post on the seminar Seth Godin gave here last week in Louisville. If you haven't, please check it out as it will make this post more sensible to you. In short, Seth made a statement that we're mostly a society receiving "average goods for average people" and most things are "already good enough."

After watching UofL's basketball team play three games in three days this weekend, I realized I'm (thankfully) not part of the majority. Average doesn't sit well with me in the least. I demand excellence from myself and the products I use or support. That may make me radically different, which I'm happy with, but why does the majority accept mediocrity? Where does fitting in with the average Jane or Joe really get you? Since I rarely half-ass anything, the mentality to accept mediocre status in anything irritates me. Either do something or don't--there is no in between!

The basketball product I witnessed this weekend is very mediocre at best, and this will be the second year in a row that the product on the floor is not up to par for my tastes. Does that mean I'm no longer a fan? No, but it means that I probably won't vote with my wallet next year and renew my season tickets. That's the price of mediocre--you lose interest from people like me if you try to fool me more than once. I feel as if Rick Pitino is trying to fool me with this team by telling the media that this team will be very good by year's end. Unless he has some sort of magic trick he's going to implement in the next few days, it ain't happening with this bunch.

UofL has now lost to Dayton (a mid-pack Atlantic 10 School), only beat Ohio by 3 (a mid-pack MAC school), and struggled with Division II Bellarmine yesterday. Yes, I said DIVISION II!!! I'm sorry, but the Big East Conference is anything but "mid-pack" or average so something has to give based on the results thus far. Yes, things can change with a few weeks of hard practices, but I fear that isn't going to help because this team just doesn't seem to get it. They allow lesser talented teams to hang around. They take highly contested and un-make-able shots and miss easy wide open shots very badly. Guys who shouldn't be shooting from the perimeter (T-Will!) shoot far too many jumpers, and guys who should dominate inside (Juan Palacios--a.k.a. Pele-acios) are completely soft and get their stuff pitched by smaller opponents.

In the years Pitino has been coach here, his teams rarely stop dribble penetration on fast breaks especially in the middle of the lane, and they frequently run away from shooters. That's a sure fire way to keep a lesser team in a game, and it's no way to discourage easy shots. When he was at UK, he had a boat load of talent to mask his shortcomings as a coach, but he doesn't have that talent here (yet) so his weaknesses as a coach are readily exposed. He's simply not a good bench coach--all anyone would have to do is watch his teams following a timeout to see what kind of play they run. It's, more often than not, a guy going one-on-one and taking a highly contested shot. That's coaching 101--your team should get a great look following a timeout, and UofL rarely does. It was the same at UK, but the talent level was much higher so the players had greater ability to overcome the lack of a set play on their own. On the flip side, he is a great motivator so his teams will stick around in games they have no business sticking around in so it gives off the impression to the "average fan" that his coaching abilities are responsible for that.

I'm here to tell you, Denny Crum would run circles around Pitino when it comes to play calling. Denny just couldn't recruit the modern day athlete toward the end of his tenure, but he could call plays like nobody's business. Same goes for UofL's football coach--Bobby Petrino--he's a master play caller (and great recruiter to boot), and that's why his teams have great success. As frustrated as I am with the basketball program, I'm elated with the football program and Coach Petrino. He does things "my way" which means the football program is on par with my goals and objectives in life, but the basketball team has some work to do to win me and my money back. I'll still attend the games this year and watch in hopes that I'm proven wrong, but I'm not holding my breath with this year's, average to date, basketball team. If things don't change, my wallet will vote for an alternative product next year. I'll always be a UofL fan, but season tickets are becoming far too expensive to cast any wallet share on a sub-par product any more.

Bottom line: don't settle for average--do something great for a change. The world needs more "great." Or as Seth says, "be remarkable." I couldn't agree more.