On pecan trees and football coaches

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.

I still consider a chance meeting in 1977 as part of my football education as a sportswriter.

As a cub reporter, I had gotten to know then-Virginia Tech head coach Jimmy Sharpe, who had taken over that program after serving as an assistant coach to Bear Bryant at Alabama for years. After leading Tech to an 8-3 record in his second year at the helm, Sharpe couldn’t sustain the success and was summarily fired and succeeded by North Carolina’s Bill Dooley.

The day Dooley was hired, I bumped into Sharpe at a gas station and he left me with these words that I will never forget, and pretty much sums up the life of a football coach:

“You know what they say in the South when you get hired as a head football coach,” Sharpe smiled. “Don’t go planting any pecan trees.”

Fleeting employment

Frankly, I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked some elders what Sharpe meant.

They told me that it takes 10 years for a pecan tree to become fully productive. Enough said. Coaches shouldn’t even plan on sticking around long enough to see the trees reach their maturity.

Coaches lucky enough to hang around a school or a franchise that long are probably smart enough not to take the risk of planting.

Fast forward to this afternoon at Land Shark Stadium, located in what they call Miami Gardens.

Really, the location, the stadium name, even the opponent doesn’t really make that much difference.

Too much to overcome?

Virginia coach Al Groh has been in this position before, an embattled head coach under fire. Even though his Cavaliers are 3-5 overall and 2-2 in the ACC’s Coastal Division, and mathematically and theoretically alive for postseason play, all signs point to the end of the Groh era at UVa a few weeks down the road.

Some insiders believe that even if Groh were to win out, finish 7-5, beat the Hokies, go to a bowl game and win it, too, that it wouldn’t be enough to save his job.

With camps divided across Wahoo Nation, dwindling numbers at the turnstiles, dwindling confidence from one side of the aisle, potentially a third losing season in the last four years, it may be too much for Groh to overcome.

Do I think Groh is a good football coach? Yes, I do. Even some of his biggest detractors that I have spoken with, some of them of the movers and shakers category, admit that Groh can coach. Do I believe that he’s made some mistakes along the way? Certainly.

Do I think everything that is wrong with Virginia football is Groh’s fault? No way. That’s another story, or more.

What is interesting is the dynamics of what is taking place as the final four games of the season begin to unravel.

As they also say in the South, the body isn’t even cold yet and the rumors are already swirling about who Groh’s replacement might be. There was even the ridiculous rumor that Jon Gruden was spotted in town this week.

C’mon people. Give us a break.

Dare we be so cold-blooded? Should Virginia make a coaching change, we’re talking about people’s lives here. We’re talking about at least 10 families being impacted by such drama.

Ask any athletic director and he’ll tell you the most difficult thing he might ever have to do is fire a football coach because so many people are involved.

For any of you snickering right now, I wish you had been outside the Virginia dressing room last Saturday night after the loss to Duke and saw the tears in Anne Groh’s eyes. She’s a great lady who was overwhelmed with the loss.

She may get angry with me for revealing this, but she even corrected her own parents once after a loss several years ago when she and Al were devastated by the defeat, and one of her parents remarked, “Well, it’s just a game.”

Anne Groh didn’t hesitate to respond, “No, it’s not just a game. It’s our lives.”

No one wants to win these games more than Al Groh and his coaching staff. They spend countless hours in preparation for each game. They pour their souls into every Saturday, and as Groh said after the Duke loss, every loss haunts them.

These guys are trying their hardest to win. If they mess it up, it’s on them, and they know that better than anyone else. Just about any coach who has been around long enough has been fired at least once or on a staff that was fired. They go into the profession with that as a given.

If Groh can’t find a way to beat Miami today — or even if he does and still loses his job — he will walk away knowing that he gave it his best shot against some very challenging circumstances.

Do you know how many Virginia football coaches have left the school with winning records in more than 120 years? I know, it’s an unfair question, and the only reason I know is that I wrote the book on the history of UVa football.

The answer is 28.

Twenty-five of them came before World War II, and 22 of those 25 came before World War I when Virginia was the football power of the South.

That’s three coaches in the last 57 years who have compiled career winning records at Virginia. Groh is one of those.

Regardless of how the next four regular season games come out, Cavalier fans should keep one thing in mind.

Have class.

If Groh is released by Craig Littlepage and John Casteen later this month, then let the man leave with his dignity. He’s one of yours, you know. He wore the orange and blue, left the NFL to come back and attempted to carry on George Welsh’s success. He even sent a son here to play and help beat Florida State.

Don’t make the same mistake of 1999 and 2000 when Virginia fans treated Welsh shamefully. The Hall of Famer still hasn’t forgotten how a segment of Cavalier fans turned their back on him after he had taken the program to unprecedented heights.

Oh, how soon they forget.