The Allure of College Sports for Coaches

College Sports are gaining rapid popularity among coaches. More and more coaches like Nick Saban are stepping away from the pro game and going back into coaching college where coaches have more power and more fun. Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban who won a national championship with the LSU Tigers, hated the pro game and wanted to return to college football. So he resigned with one year left on his contract and he took 32 million dollars from the Alabama Tide to be their new coach. Many professional football coaches are called up by colleges in an effort to recruit the coaches. The college season ends before the regular season in pro football is over and as a result, college teams try to recruit coaches and assistants in the NFL while they are still coaching their teams.

The college game has a lot of alluring aspects for coaches. One of the most important is job stability. The resignation of Coach Bill Cower signifies the end of the tenure of the longest coach in football. However, during those 15 years, there were 92 head coaching changes in football which shows just how much turnover there is in coaching in the NFL. Coaches are constantly being fired or forced to resign because their team had one bad year or didn't make the playoffs. This past year there were 10 new head coaches in the NFL and this off-season there will be at least 5 more and counting. Coaches are less likely to get fired in college because teams just can't afford to pay the rest of a contract for a coach that they fire.

Now, college sports have seemed too caught up with professional sports with the pay that coaches are receiving. College coaches are now receiving raises and tremendous amounts of cash that is equal to the amount coaches are getting paid in the pro or very close to that amount.

In addition, the atmosphere on a college campus is contagious and fans love to embrace the college players and coaches. College students love sports team coaches that win and fans are much more forgiving of coaches if they have one bad season. Finally, coaches love to shape the lives of young college students who are not yet unfenced by big money contracts and endorsement deals. It is a great feeling to impact the life of someone and that is the kind of power and feeling that coaches get on the college level.

Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weiss just signed a 10 year contract with Notre Dame and past pro coaches who went back to college also include Steve Spurrier at South Carolina.