Tis the Season for Coach Poaching
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As former Tulane Sport Information Director Lenny Vangilder told us recently, "Football drives the bus at Tulane." How the Green Wave football program does directly affects every other Wave sport. So, when a second head football coach leaves in just two years, Tulane fans rightfully are worried about their bus driver.
On one hand, it could be considered a compliment that Tulane athletic director David Harris' hires are desired by larger, Power 4 programs. After all, it shows you made the right decision back in 2023 when you decided to bring Jon Sumrall to Uptown from Troy, Alabama.
On the other hand, it shows what has become commonplace across the collegiate landscape: coach poaching.
Florida steps in and hires away Tulane's football coach, much like Houston did when they took away Willie Fritz two years ago. Now, it's Tulane's turn. Harris will be doing his coach poaching two-step to find a coach to take away from another program, just like he did two years ago to Troy.
And the cycle continues.
Fans talk about loyalty and how wrong it is for another school to step in and take "our coach." Yet, when their coach is taken away from them, guess what your team is going to do.
I can remember as far back as Tommy O'Boyle. Tulane hired him from Southwest Missouri State in 1962. That didn't work out, so the Greenies landed Jim Pittman who was an assistant at Texas in 1966. TCU stole him. So, Tulane poached Bennie Ellender from Arkansas State. And the list goes on: Mack Brown, Buddy Teevens, Tommy Bowden, and many more along with the aforementioned Fritz and Sumrall.
Coach Poaching Has Been Around Awhile
Coach poaching has been going on since the time colleges decided sports was going to be part of their identity.
Now, the timing part, that's different, right? Nah. In fact, Tulane has had its share of catastrophes over the century-plus the Green Wave have fielded a football team.
Bowden left Tulane on December 2, 1998, almost a month before the Liberty Bowl on the last day of that year. Rich Rodriguez was supposed to coach the Green Wave in that game. Rodriguez was fully expecting to be named the head coach when that announcement was made on December 7, wearing a Tulane tie to the announcement. For those of you who don't remember that debacle, ask an older Wave fan how that worked out.
Hiring coaches from successful programs has been part of sports probably since the Greeks started the Olympic Games. This is not new. We asked Tulane's Harris this week if he follows what most business people do: have some possibilities in your hip pocket.
"I think you always have names that you're constantly looking at and evaluating," Harris told us. "To be able to successfully fend off the situation like we did from last year, you'd be crazy not to think this could occur at any time. So, it's in your best interest to make sure you have what you call a short list."
So, the coaching carousel continues to turn. Harris, with the help of those inside Tulane and outside the "family," will get to choose who gets on the ride. If he is successful, the coach will get to decide how many times around he's going to ride it.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.