As always this board has been fascinating reading the past few days. Ever since the rumors began, the self-pity crew has moaned about the persistent, irreconcilable shortcomings of the university as driving Marrone away. By contrast, the mood of the head coach fan club members hasn't been depressive but rather outraged at the shortsightedness of the university to allow things to get to this stage. While the reactions have been different, the general perspective has been the same: that the university and the program are the root cause of Marrone's departure. Few, however, have talked about Marrone himself.
I mentioned this below but why can't this move be more about Marrone's personality than the negative aspects of the SU head football coach's job? I don't doubt there are problems. I also don't doubt that Marrone was aware of some of those problems before taking the job. It's a mistake to think he wasn't. I think instead it makes more sense to say that he wasn't aware of how much those problems would weigh him down. And I want to stress the word "him" in that last sentence. Why can't some of the problems that Marrone had here be problems because he perceived them as problems? Or that perhaps his personality exacerbated those problems? Why can't we expect that the next coach will be more adept at dealing with those problems? Or that they won't be perceived as problems at all? There is no doubt in my mind that Marrone is a very good football coach but that doesn't mean that he is very good at every aspect of his job. It may be that he sees this move as highlighting what he recognizes to be his strengths while papering over his weaknesses. It remains to be seen if that is the case but that may well be his assumption.
And that last point is worth underlining. He may think he knows but he likely doesn't know now with any greater certainty what he's in for in Buffalo than he did when he came to Syracuse. He could well be overestimating his ability to handle what problems he's identified in Buffalo. Heck, I'm nearly 40 and I'm learning new things about myself and my personality everyday. What we think we can do and what we can do are hardly ever identical. There is no pure rationality in operation.
To me, the great irony is that in a country where we're all supposed to be rugged individualists, the general assumption always seems to be that everyone has the same experiences of everything. Personality matters.
I mentioned this below but why can't this move be more about Marrone's personality than the negative aspects of the SU head football coach's job? I don't doubt there are problems. I also don't doubt that Marrone was aware of some of those problems before taking the job. It's a mistake to think he wasn't. I think instead it makes more sense to say that he wasn't aware of how much those problems would weigh him down. And I want to stress the word "him" in that last sentence. Why can't some of the problems that Marrone had here be problems because he perceived them as problems? Or that perhaps his personality exacerbated those problems? Why can't we expect that the next coach will be more adept at dealing with those problems? Or that they won't be perceived as problems at all? There is no doubt in my mind that Marrone is a very good football coach but that doesn't mean that he is very good at every aspect of his job. It may be that he sees this move as highlighting what he recognizes to be his strengths while papering over his weaknesses. It remains to be seen if that is the case but that may well be his assumption.
And that last point is worth underlining. He may think he knows but he likely doesn't know now with any greater certainty what he's in for in Buffalo than he did when he came to Syracuse. He could well be overestimating his ability to handle what problems he's identified in Buffalo. Heck, I'm nearly 40 and I'm learning new things about myself and my personality everyday. What we think we can do and what we can do are hardly ever identical. There is no pure rationality in operation.
To me, the great irony is that in a country where we're all supposed to be rugged individualists, the general assumption always seems to be that everyone has the same experiences of everything. Personality matters.
