Coaching Carousel

Waiting in line to receive a ticket from a bundled-up woman inside the big red cylinder shaped like a candle. Listening to the Christmas music bellowing through metal speakers. Walking across mushy sawdust evenly strewn across the Fairfax baseball field before climbing aboard the carousel centered over the pitcher’s mound. Finding the perfect horse and hopping on. Sometimes riding the inside horse. Sometimes riding the outside horse. Sometimes relegated to the middle horse. Racing the persons seated next to you. Never winning, but never losing. Always fun and exciting.

This was a Christmas tradition for all of us who called our home “the Chattahoochee Valley.” The annual Christmas Merry-Go-Round was not only a treat for youngsters, but for those young at heart as well. And this tradition continues even today, though at a different location.

My wife worked at a carousel when she was in high school. She heard the piped classical music and saw the hand-crafted horses and the smiling faces daily. She worked the Riverview Carousel at Six Flags over Georgia. Built in 1908, that carousel turned 100 this past year.

She always thought that getting engaged on that carousel while the music was playing and the horses were bobbing up and down might be the epitome of romanticism. I don’t really know about that, but I DO know it was not where we got engaged.

There’s another carousel taking place as well. This one has been called, appropriately I believe, the “Coaching Carousel.” And right now in the Southeastern Conference, it is in full force. Paul Gattis of the Huntsville Times even wrote an article about it this past week.

Borrowing some of his research, as well as my own observations, let’s climb aboard the carousel and look around.

Gene Chizik left Iowa State to become head coach at Auburn. Paul Rhodes left Auburn to become head coach at Iowa State. Ken Steele left Alabama to go to Clemson. John Chavis left Tennessee to go to LSU. Dan Mullen left Florida to go to Mississippi State. Ed Orgeron left the Saints, after leaving Ole Miss last year, to go to Tennessee.

You get the idea. Keeping up with the coaching moves is enough to make your head spin.

Like watching kids at a carousel. Sometimes climbing on the inside horse. Sometimes the outside. Sometimes relegated to the middle. Going up and down, and round and round. Only stopping long enough to let a new group on, while the old group scrambles for left-over and empty seats. And then the Merry-Go-Round begins again.

Just like college football.

WJLaneSR