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January 19, 2007 > Sports > Graham’s coaching future marred by breach of trust

Graham’s coaching future marred by breach of trust

By Nathan Bledsoe | Thresher Editorial Staff

One of my earliest conversations with Todd Graham was about T-shirts. I was talking to him both as the football writer for the Thresher and as a supporter eager to get students excited about Rice football. He told me that he would personally buy a T-shirt for any student willing to commit to attending all the Rice football home games. Looking back, this example of Graham’s approach to material things and commitment provides a microcosm for all things Todd Graham in his short stay at Rice.

I had more contact with Graham than most Rice students, likely surpassed only by his players and possibly some of the team managers. Because I cover the football team for the Thresher, I interviewed Graham on many occasions. Also, I served as one of the leaders of the “War Owls” student section and spoke with Graham on many occasions about how to get and keep the student body involved.

All of my interactions with Graham were filled with coachspeak and sports cliches, but two things stood out in my mind from day one. First, Graham loved to talk about things. Whether it was a new scoreboard, high-tech gadgets for his entire coaching staff, or giveaways for students at home football games, he loved to talk about all things material. Second, the man loved to talk about commitment.

Tulsa, Graham’s new employer, isn’t a BCS program, and is at best a lateral move for Graham’s coaching career. By all indications, this move was purely financial — his contract with Tulsa is for a reported $1.1 million a year. Although sources are fairly shaky, Graham’s contract at Rice was most likely in the ballpark of $600,000 a year. While either sum is good money, to a man with six kids, nearly doubling your salary is a highly attractive bargain. Business-wise, Graham made a decision that pretty much anyone in his situation would make.

Besides a high salary, one determines elite success in the world of college football by a single factor — recruiting. While X’s and O’s are important to success, to win consistently a coach must bring in a high level of talent with each class. Recruiting is anything but a science. It requires a variable mix of salesmanship, likeability, facilities, geography, connections to high school coaches and trust. This trust is developed on a personal level between coaches and recruits and their families, as well as between college coaches and their high school counterparts.

When a coach speaks of commitment — commitment to a program, to a school and to a set of players — he is establishing a tangible trail to which he can be held accountable. In an interview with KHOU Jan. 9, two days before he bolted, Graham spoke extensively of commitment by, and to, Rice’s Athletic Department and the university. He linked the commitment to himself, his family, and his “coaching family.” The fact of the matter is that “coaching family” was left fractured and displaced when two days after announcing his contract extension, Graham signed a new contract with Tulsa. So much for commitment and trust, huh?

Some schools recruit with reputation, with built-in fanbases that maintain interest every year regardless of their record. These schools are few and far between, and neither Rice nor Tulsa is on that list. At places like Rice and Tulsa, it is the coach, and not the school, who must spark the initial interest with a potential recruit. Here the balance of the school, facilities, and personal qualities of a coach and his staff come into play extensively. When a coach goes on record at a school preaching commitment and then departs from that school in less than 13 months, his earnestness will immediately come under question, regardless of his actual motivation for the move.

Graham’s motivation likely had a lot to do with his family, both financially and because of their preference for the city of Tulsa, as he has stated. Yet to the casual observer Graham appears part of an unfortunate trend in collegiate coaching. The trend, which new Alabama coach Nick Saban knows all about, is to view a contract as worth no more than the paper on which it is printed, and to run to a new employer as soon as the auctioneer that is college football receives a higher bid. Furthermore, moving to another Conference-USA team versus a BCS conference team gives Graham no margin for error — if he doesn’t win at Tulsa, the way he left Rice will come under fire, as will the fact that he has only won with inherited players, not his own recruits.

Rice football may have suffered a setback, but the real pressure is on Todd Graham as he attempts to move forward with a coaching career. For $1.1 million a year, do you think Tulsa fans are going to show patience once that first losing streak comes around? No, Graham is going to have to justify such a high salary with quick and consistent success. Anything less and the Tulsa faithful will show him just how hollow the word “commitment” can be.

Everyone knows that for a man with high aspirations for his coaching career, “commitment” is a relative term — no coach sets his sights on staying at a non-BCS conference school in today’s world of Division I-A college football so grossly lacking in competitive parity. Coaches constantly balance the desire and potential for success at their current job with the prospect of greener pastures elsewhere. Todd Graham chose the short-term promise of greener pastures. In the long run, though, when he has to look a recruit in the eyes and preach to him the values of trust and loyalty, he’ll find that he hurt himself far more than he hurt Rice football.

Nathan Bledsoe is a Lovett college sophomore, calendar editor and football writer.

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