Chad McEvoy, Illinois State University Kyle Ehrhardt, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

1. Chad McEvoy, Illinois State University Kyle Ehrhardt, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Brent Beggs, Illinois State University Who should I hire?What job should I take?Successor Type and Coaching Performance in NCAA Division I Football and Men’s Basketball

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. Purpose of the Study • Practical implications • Athletic directors: Who should I hire? • Coaches: Which head coaching job should I pursue/take?

7. 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

8. 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)

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. Results and Discussion Football Men’s Basketball • Outside assistants hired by considerably-lower ranked schools than the two other groups

14. Results and Discussion Football Men’s Basketball • The two outside successor groups appear virtually identical, other than starting positions

15. Results and Discussion Football Men’s Basketball • Schools that declined in performance prior to succession hired an outside successor, while schools with improved performance prior to succession hired an inside successor

16. 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

17. Results and Discussion Football Men’s Basketball • Both outside successor groups showed steady improvement over time after succession, while insiders declined

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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)

22. Questions, comments, discussion…