chad mcevoy, illinois state university kyle ehrhardt, university of wisconsin-milwaukee brent beggs,...
TRANSCRIPT
Who should I hire?What job should I take?
Successor Type and Coaching Performance in NCAA Division I Football and Men’s Basketball
Chad McEvoy, Illinois State UniversityKyle Ehrhardt, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Brent Beggs, Illinois State University
Introduction
Industry of significant turnover Impact of a hire is extremely
significant: Team performance Revenue
▪ Ticket sales▪ Sponsorship▪ Fund raising▪ Postseason participation
Expensive to hire
Review of Literature
Managerial succession extensively studied in business/management settings, with mixed results: Promoting from within leads to stability
▪ Grusky, 1960 Outside successors can have a positive
impact through a change in direction▪ Shen & Cannella, 2002
Review of Literature
Some research exists in managerial/coaching succession in sport, primarily at the professional level: Change naturally leads to improvement
▪ Pfeffer & Davis-Blake, 1986 - NBA Succession hurts performance due to
instability▪ Grusky, 1963 - MLB▪ Audas, Dobson, & Goddard, 2002 - EPL
Change has no impact▪ Brown, 1982 - NFL
Purpose of the Study
Examined whether differences existed in post-succession performance in NCAA Division I football and men’s basketball based upon the type of coaching successor hired: Assistant coach from inside the program Assistant coach from outside the
program Head coach from outside the program
Purpose of the Study
Practical implications Athletic directors: Who should I hire? Coaches: Which head coaching job
should I pursue/take?
Methods
Subjects NCAA Division I football and men’s
basketball programs Time period = 1985-2004
▪ Every coaching succession between 1989-2000 considered a case/subject
▪ Coaches would did not remain at the institution for a minimum of four years were not included in the sample
Methods
Three successor types/groups Inside successor (FB: N=65; MBB: N=84) Outside successor – head coach (FB:
N=80; MBB: N=211) Outside successor – assistant coach (FB:
N=104; MBB: N=147)
Methods
Collected eight years of computer rankings for each subject – the four years before and four years after the succession took place Sagarin computer rankings collected as
the measure of team performance
Methods
Statistical Design Separate mixed between-within subjects
ANOVA’s for football and men’s basketball subjects▪ Between-subjects factor = three coaching
succession groups▪ Within subjects factor = team performance
across time▪ Greenhouse-Geisser test used due to violation
of sphericity assumption
Methods
Statistical Design Post-hoc testing - multiple post hoc tests
conducted due to significant disordinal interaction▪ Tukey’s post-hoc tests used to examine
differences between the three groups across each of the eight time periods (coaching years)
▪ Repeated measures ANOVAs and dependent t-tests used to examine differences within the eight time periods
Results
Greenhouse-Geisser tests significant (FB: F=2.57, p=.02; MBB: F=4.965, p<.001)
Significant disordinal interactions with both FB and MBB
Significant differences between the three successor groups for each of the eight years (FB: all F’s>5.00, all p’s<.01; MBB: all F’s>3.00, all p’s<.05)
Significant differences found within each of the three groups across time for both FB and MBB (FB: all p’s<.02; MBB: all p’s<.04) Dependent t-tests used to test for pairwise
differences within each group
Results and Discussion
Outside assistants hired by considerably-lower ranked schools than the two other groups
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Men’s BasketballFootball
Results and Discussion
The two outside successor groups appear virtually identical, other than starting positions
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Men’s BasketballFootball
Results and Discussion
Schools that declined in performance prior to succession hired an outside successor, while schools with improved performance prior to succession hired an inside successor
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Men’s BasketballFootball
Results and Discussion
When performance is better than normal, inside successors will be hired…when performance is worse than normal, outside successors will be hired Recent MBB examples = Outside: John
Calipari to Kentucky, Tony Bennett to Virginia; Inside: Josh Pastner at Memphis
Recent FB examples = Outside: Lane Kiffin to Tennessee; Inside: Bill Stewart at West Virginia, Greg McMackin at Hawaii
Results and Discussion
Both outside successor groups showed steady improvement over time after succession, while insiders declined
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Time
87654321
Com
pute
r Rat
ing
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
Group
Outside head
Inside assistant
Outside assistant
Men’s BasketballFootball
Practical Implications
Athletic Directors: Who should I hire? These results suggest that athletic
directors should think twice about promoting a coach from within the program and should look outside the program for a new coach
Are these results because of the coaches themselves or rather the circumstances under which they’re hired?▪ Regression to the mean
Further Testing
Currently research ongoing in this area Preliminary results:
When ignoring successor type, 53 of 57 programs examined improved over the next four years when hiring a coach immediately following a season worse than the school’s long-term Sagarin mean
41 of 47 programs declined in performance over the next four year when hiring a coach immediately following a season better than the school’s long-term Sagarin mean
Practical Implications
Coaches: Which head coaching job should I pursue/take? Some may not be able to be overly
selective as opportunities may be difficult to obtain
Our previous and ongoing research suggests that a coach should be wary of being promoted from within and/or replacing a coach that has performed better than the school’s long-term norm
Practical Implications
Coaches: Which head coaching job should I pursue/take? – Recent examples: John Calipari appears to be positioned for
success at Kentucky (2008-09 Sagarin ranking=51)
Likewise, Tony Bennett has a chance to be successful at Virginia (2008-09 ranking=99)
Conversely, Josh Pastner could have a difficult time replacing Calipari at Memphis (top 10 ranking the past few seasons, 9th this year)
Questions, comments, discussion…