Jacob Thorpe: WSU needs to rebound quickly from its bad breakup with Jake Dickert
The football coaches are going to leave. If that is not clear to you yet, it may never be. The football coaches are going to leave. If you ask them about it, they will lie. So, stop asking unless you want to be lied to.
Mike Price left. So did Mike Leach. “Lone Star” Dietz? He left to coach the Marines. Even Jim Walden left, before he came back as a radio man.
Movies have given us weird associations with athletes and coaches. Those movies are beautiful and inspiring and we want to see those satisfying story arcs play out in our lives, for our teams. We build mythologies. We need to think each coach is a special community leader who chose our town because it so perfectly embodies their own character, not because it was the job that was open.
Not that other coach from the rival school, though. That guy’s a snake.
Washington State University’s fourth estate has spent the past few days harrumphing around the internet and sports radio demonstrating its outrage that Jake Dickert lied, LIED when pressed about his future at WSU. Never mind I have yet to hear a clip of him saying, “I will never leave WSU under any circumstances.”
Never mind that if he gave an honest answer that, yes, like most people, he can both like his job and still be induced to another one by money and perks and circumstances, would have materially damaged the football program. Perhaps the pundits would prefer the next WSU coach go on their shows and say that WSU is a fine job, sure, but there are plenty that pay more and offer easier opportunities to win in parts of the country where more people prefer to live. Hey, the coach won’t sign many good recruits, but at least he won’t have lied to you!
This one seems to land particularly hard because Dickert appeared to get WSU. He spoke with tenderness and nuance about the joys of coaching in a small town, he defended his players and his employer tenaciously to the press, and carried WSU’s banner forcefully. I don’t think he was lying.
OK, maybe he talked too much about “loyalty” as it relates to the transfer portal for a guy who was open to offers.
We know that because the money is so good coaches leave schools more frequently now, and so we harangue them constantly with our insecurities, demanding they frequently reassure us that, yes, this is a dream job.
The problem is not coaches leaving or lying. Dickert did a fine job at WSU. Fans want every coach to be the coach who stays forever and gets a statue and a legacy built, but in between those rare ones there are going to be lots of coaches who are at the school for about five years. It’s better to have them leave because they won games than fired because they did not.
Remember this as the era when the Cougars beat the Huskies in Seattle twice in three tries. When WSU went to three bowl games in four years – once a rare feat. Dickert did a passable job in Pullman and was a good spokesperson for the program. Now he’s off to Wake Forest. Oh well, farewell.
Unless you are a bright-eyed child of about 10 years old (and if you are, congrats on reading a newspaper!), you didn’t pick the Cougars as your team because of John Mateer. I’m certain none of you fans chose WSU because of coach Dickert.
Personally, I think we ascribe too much power to coaches and less to circumstance and random chance. How well does the coach happen to vibe with the current group of players? Take Luke Fickell, clearly an excellent head football coach. So much so that he made Cincinnati the only Group of Five team to make the four-team playoff. Now he’s on the hot seat at Wisconsin. This year the Badgers didn’t even make a bowl game.
Maybe the next coach will win more games than Dickert, maybe he won’t. Maybe as fans it would be better to focus more of your energy on the transient players, who will be in one year or four, regardless of the circumstances, and less on the person getting paid to call their plays.
The football coaches are going to leave. If that is not clear to you yet, it may never be. The football coaches are going to leave. If you ask them about it, they will lie. So, stop asking unless you want to be lied to.
Mike Price left. So did Mike Leach. “Lone Star” Dietz? He left to coach the Marines. Even Jim Walden left, before he came back as a radio man.
Movies have given us weird associations with athletes and coaches. Those movies are beautiful and inspiring and we want to see those satisfying story arcs play out in our lives, for our teams. We build mythologies. We need to think each coach is a special community leader who chose our town because it so perfectly embodies their own character, not because it was the job that was open.
Not that other coach from the rival school, though. That guy’s a snake.
Washington State University’s fourth estate has spent the past few days harrumphing around the internet and sports radio demonstrating its outrage that Jake Dickert lied, LIED when pressed about his future at WSU. Never mind I have yet to hear a clip of him saying, “I will never leave WSU under any circumstances.”
Never mind that if he gave an honest answer that, yes, like most people, he can both like his job and still be induced to another one by money and perks and circumstances, would have materially damaged the football program. Perhaps the pundits would prefer the next WSU coach go on their shows and say that WSU is a fine job, sure, but there are plenty that pay more and offer easier opportunities to win in parts of the country where more people prefer to live. Hey, the coach won’t sign many good recruits, but at least he won’t have lied to you!
This one seems to land particularly hard because Dickert appeared to get WSU. He spoke with tenderness and nuance about the joys of coaching in a small town, he defended his players and his employer tenaciously to the press, and carried WSU’s banner forcefully. I don’t think he was lying.
OK, maybe he talked too much about “loyalty” as it relates to the transfer portal for a guy who was open to offers.
We know that because the money is so good coaches leave schools more frequently now, and so we harangue them constantly with our insecurities, demanding they frequently reassure us that, yes, this is a dream job.
The problem is not coaches leaving or lying. Dickert did a fine job at WSU. Fans want every coach to be the coach who stays forever and gets a statue and a legacy built, but in between those rare ones there are going to be lots of coaches who are at the school for about five years. It’s better to have them leave because they won games than fired because they did not.
Remember this as the era when the Cougars beat the Huskies in Seattle twice in three tries. When WSU went to three bowl games in four years – once a rare feat. Dickert did a passable job in Pullman and was a good spokesperson for the program. Now he’s off to Wake Forest. Oh well, farewell.
Unless you are a bright-eyed child of about 10 years old (and if you are, congrats on reading a newspaper!), you didn’t pick the Cougars as your team because of John Mateer. I’m certain none of you fans chose WSU because of coach Dickert.
Personally, I think we ascribe too much power to coaches and less to circumstance and random chance. How well does the coach happen to vibe with the current group of players? Take Luke Fickell, clearly an excellent head football coach. So much so that he made Cincinnati the only Group of Five team to make the four-team playoff. Now he’s on the hot seat at Wisconsin. This year the Badgers didn’t even make a bowl game.
Maybe the next coach will win more games than Dickert, maybe he won’t. Maybe as fans it would be better to focus more of your energy on the transient players, who will be in one year or four, regardless of the circumstances, and less on the person getting paid to call their plays.
