0302050339
DETROIT FREE PRESS
030205
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
METRO FINAL
1A
Photo PAUL SAKUMA/Associated Press
In six seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, Steve Mariucci posted a 60-43
record. During that time, the Lions were 36-62.
MITCH ALBOM FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Copyright (c) 2003, Detroit Free Press
LIONS MAKE SMART HIRE
MARIUCCI SIGNS 5-YEAR, $25-MILLION DEAL
Put on the coffee. Pull open the shades. The Detroit Lions,
awakening from a decades-long slumber, are today, officially, entering the
21st Century.
They are, for the first time, hiring a coach that other teams actually covet.
They are, for the first time, paying the kind of money the top teams pay and
the top coaches get. They are, for the first time, jumping feet first into the
sandbox with the other top NFL teams, looking to a proven, young winner to
guide them -- instead of some who-dat face they got on the cheap.
This isn't Wayne. This isn't Darryl. This isn't Marty, Monte or Rick. This
isn't your Daddy's Lions coach.
"They signed Mariucci," went the buzz across Detroit on Tuesday afternoon.
"Did you hear? They signed Mariucci. For five million a year!"
The first statement is undeniable. The second will be verified later today, at
a news conference at Ford Field, a big place for, appropriately, a big new
idea. Steve Mariucci, 47, after a successful tenure with the high-class San
Francisco 49ers, is taking over perhaps the most bedraggled franchise in the
NFL. He's doing it with a five-year deal. He's doing it for a boatload of
money.
And they'll still be lucky to win six games next season.
Sorry. I had to throw that bucket of reality. He's a good coach, and this is a
great move, but coaches don't pass or tackle, and the talent on this team is
not up to the reputation of the new skipper.
Still, after five victories in the last two seasons, Lions fans are happy to
live in a submarine, as long as it's pointed up.
"They signed Mariucci!" It rang around town and jingled in the corners of
Detroit football desperation. It knocked on basement doors, it lifted ladders
to the attic, it invited the depressed and downtrodden masses with their
silver-and-blue crying towels to come out, come out, a new day was dawning.
They signed Mariucci.
Get out the mariachis.
He's a proven winner
So, can he make that big a difference? Hard to say. "Mooch," as they call him,
inherited a wonderful team in his first year as head coach of the Niners. With
players such as Steve Young, Garrison Hearst, Jerry Rice and Dana
Stubblefield, it took him only six games in 1997 to get as many victories as
Marty Mornhinweg got here in two years.
But those players aren't on this roster. Mariucci did go through a couple of
lean seasons in San Francisco -- a four-win season and a six-win season -- and
what's most impressive is that he turned it around and got the team back to 12
and 10 victories. It may be that, more than his early success, that bodes most
promising for the Lions.
Still, in Detroit, Mariucci won't have the benefit of the San Francisco brain
trust, namely guru Bill Walsh. Say what you will about Walsh's alleged
interference with coaches, the guy has been pretty consistent in producing
winners. Matt Millen isn't Bill Walsh. So he's on the line as well.
Ignore Cochran's criticism
By the way, speaking of Millen, a word here about the sudden wave of criticism
being showered on him by civil rights attorneys Johnnie Cochran and Cyrus
Mehri, suggesting Millen and the Lions are old-boy bigots who violated NFL
policy by not interviewing minority candidates seriously. I'll use language
here that Cochran, the man who told us O.J. was innocent, will understand:
You're out of order.
If you wanted to complain, you should have been here two years ago, when
Mornhinweg was hired. Now that was a move to object to. After all, he had no
experience.
But Mariucci? Sorry. Given all the alternatives out there -- black AND white
-- I think 25 out of 32 teams would have made the same hire. And given
Mariucci's ties to Michigan, his childhood here, his tight friendship with
another area icon, Tom Izzo, the Lions had every reason to want to grab him
once he was available.
And by the way, where was the uproar when Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas
Cowboys, was meeting with first-choice Bill Parcells before his current coach
was even fired?
Which doesn't mean the Lions couldn't interview a Dennis Green or a Tim Lewis.
But those men chose not to be interviewed. They didn't think they were being
taken seriously enough.
"By essentially crowning Mariucci as the next head coach before doing a single
interview, the Lions discouraged African-American coaches from putting their
hat in the ring in Detroit," Mehri said. "Millen, in public and private
statements, could not look African-American candidates in the eye and tell
them they had a fair shot."
How would they know? They never BOTHERED to look him in the eye. I listened to
Millen in his news conference when he fired Mornhinweg last week and opened
the search process. He did everything he could to say he was interested in
talking to "lots of candidates." Are you going to prosecute him because
privately he had a favorite? That's pretty slippery terrain.
Besides, the league policy, as I understand it, is not to promise someone a
job, just a serious interview. How many of us have gone to interviews knowing
we weren't the first choice, maybe knowing we didn't have a chance? But we go.
We prepare. We take a chance. You never know. Maybe you wow them, and they
can't help but hire you.
But by not even taking the interview -- and complaining that, "Ah, well, they
were never gonna hire me" -- you forfeit any right to complain about lack of
opportunity. Cochran and Mehri would have better cases saying the Lions
violated policy if the coaches they represented had tried to follow it
themselves.
Anyhow, that's over now. There's a new man in town -- along with a new set of
Lions rules. Fair is fair. Take out your old lists, sharpen your pencils, then
put a line through the axioms that have always defined this franchise but, as
of today, are no more:
1. Can't get a name coach.
2. Won't pay for a name coach.
3. Won't get rid of a lousy coach.
4. Won't take chances.
They have done all four. They have broken their own mold. They have awakened
into the present tense of football. Which, of course, prompts the very
important question:
What are we going to complain about now?
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch
Albom Show" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Also hear "Monday Sports Albom"
7-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR.
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