Ross retires after 3 years at Army
70-year old Bobby Ross, the head coach of the Army football program, retired today. As with most things Bobby Ross-related, the move was done quietly, with little fanfare. Ross was hired three seasons ago to rebuild Army's program, but he struggled with a 9-25 record with the Black Knights losing their final six games of the 2006 season.
Ross is one of the more underrated football coaches of the past 30-years. He is the rare breed of head football coach that saw success in both the NFL and the NCAA. His finest coaching achievement was in 1990, when he lead Georgia Tech to a share of the national championship. He left Georgia Tech in 1991 to become the head coach of the San Diego Chargers. And in 1995, he did what many "big-time" college coaches dream of doing (I'm looking at you, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban), as he lead the Chargers to a Super Bowl Appearance. In all, Coach Ross was the head man at The Citadel (1973-77), Maryland (1982-86), Georgia Tech (1987-91), San Diego Chargers (1992-96), Detroit Lions (1997-00), and Army (2004-06). Overall, he held a career record of 180-169-2.
Ross had a distinguished career. My only commentary on him, is in regards to his most recent job at Army. Hiring a 67-year old coach, that had retired four years before due to poor health, was a pretty poor decision at the time, and in hindsight looks even worse. College football coaching and, in particular, program building is a young man's game. If you look at the older men that are still coaching successfully, they are the coaches that built their programs from scratch and have maintained success--think Penn State, Florida State, or Virginia Tech, OR they took over programs that were already functioning at a pretty high level and just needed some fine-tuning--think Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Florida, or Ohio State (and look for Miami and Alabama to get back in this category soon). And, if you think about the programs that have truly elevated themselves in the past few season, they have done it through the long hours of their young head coaches--think California, West Virginia, Rutgers, Utah, or Boise State. I will stop short of saying that the evidence is there (since I have not done a long-term study), but the conventional wisdom appears to be that, if you want to rebuild (or even just "build") a program, you should go with a younger coach, rather than an experienced, older one.
