Waiting on a Coach

Published on January 22, 2010 8:38 PM by dbo.

Two teams are still in need of a coach for the 2010 season. The Argos and Bombers fired their coaches on December 14th and 17th respectively. With every week there are more comments in the media around the delay in hiring their replacements, with the time to prepare for the upcoming schedule shrinking rapidly. At CFLdb I wondered how unusual it was to not have a coach in place by the end of January so I decided to find out.

With the help of some of the data I’ve compiled and soon to be added to the site, I looked at off-season coaching hires since 1980. In that time there have been 70 coaching hires. Twenty-seven or about 39% took place in January. Of those, about seven were hired in the last week of January.

Off-season CFL Coaching Hires by Month since 1980
Month # of Hires
December 24
January 27
February 12
March 7

While the majority (73%) of off-season hires take place in December and January, it is not unusual for coaches to be hired in February or March. In fact, some very successful coaches were hired in these months, such as Ron Lancaster in Edmonton, Don Matthews in Baltimore and Mike Riley in Winnipeg while some not-so-successful coaches were hired in December and January (Mike Kelly, Bart Andrus and Jeff Reinebold).

If we look at the average time it takes to hire a new coach in the off-season since 1980, it comes in at 34 days, with the maximum 119 days and the minimum 0 days. Both clubs fired their coaches in mid-December and have had other issues to deal with. The timing and circumstances of the firings may not have been ideal, but you do not compound one mistake by rushing into another. Therefore, being just over the average length of a coaching search should not be worrisome. I expect that taking the time to get the right person in the position (letting new management select the coach) is more important to their success than the date they are hired.

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Waiting on a Coach was published on January 22, 2010 8:38 PM by dbo.

365 words.

This article is categorized under Game and tagged with coaches, ron-lancaster, toronto-argonauts and winnipeg-blue-bombers.

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