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Eternally Optimistic
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Most coaches enjoy anonymity of voting
By Rob Biertempfel
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Boise State football coach Dan Hawkins thought it would be fun to reveal how he voted in the national coaches top 25 poll.
Every week last season, a Boise newspaper published Hawkins' ballot next to one cast by a local sportswriter who voted in the media poll. By the end of the year, however, Hawkins vowed never to do it again.
"There's always some intrigue and drama to it, which helps sell papers," Hawkins said. "But the end result for me -- the heartache -- wasn't worth it.
"It doesn't matter whether it's your team or somebody else's, you just get bombarded by emails and phone calls. It ends up being another issue that we don't need to deal with, so I quit doing it."
Most of the 61 coaches who participate in the ESPN/USA Today poll guard their ballots as much as they do their playbooks. But that could change, now that the polls carry more weight in the Bowl Championship Series selection process.
With so much money at stake -- the per-team payout for each BCS bowl game is $13 million -- there are questions about the ethics of allowing anonymous voters to sway the process.
"A lot of voting is based on tradition and it's very hard for a new school to break into that," said Fresno State coach Pat Hill, who makes his ballot public each week.
"You can bet on one thing: if we're playing (a team), I'm voting 'em high," Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione said.
Dick Weiss, president of the Football Writers Association of America, likened that to "parents voting in a beauty pagent in which their little girl is entered."
The voters in The Associated Press media poll are required to reveal their ballots. The Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association and the FWAA want the coaches to also come clean.
The two groups recently challenged the coaches' code of silence in a letter to Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.
It is the AFCA, not financial backers ESPN and USA Today, that controls the coaches' poll.
The AFCA polls its members every year about making their ballots public. This year, Teaff said, 88 of the 117 Division I coaches voted against it.
"We'll vote on it again next January, and I would be very shocked if it changes," Teaff said.
A handful of coaches, most notably Bob Stoops of Oklahoma, are willing to go public. But most -- including Joe Paterno of Penn State, Walt Harris of Pitt and Rich Rodriguez of West Virginia -- are opposed to revealing their ballots.
"It's my personal opinion and I'd like to keep it personal," Harris said.
"We've got enough things that we do naturally to get ourselves in trouble," Ohio State's Jim Tressel said. "I don't know that we need to add one more."
Said Paterno, "If you disclose it, you have friends in the business or other people who can be alienated by it."
In November 1997, someone leaked Paterno's ballot -- which had Florida State in the top spot instead of Michigan. The voting was done a day after Michigan had upset then-No. 2 Penn State.
Paterno later admitted his ballot was filled out and submitted by associate athletic director Budd Thalman. At the end of the year, Michigan was rated No. 1 in the AP poll; Nebraska finished atop the coaches' poll.
The deadline for submitting ballots is 11 a.m., three hours later than last year. But it still is hard for voters on the East Coast to keep up with the late games on the West Coast. It's even worse for coaches who get in late from road games and who have staff meetings early Sunday morning.
"It's difficult when it's so close down near the end of the season, and you don't actually get a chance to see the teams actually play," said UCF coach George O'Leary. "You have to go based on just what you've read or what you've heard."
O'Leary relies on SportsCenter for information. Paterno gets help from new associate AD Fran Ganter. Harris huddles with his staff and makes his picks in "about 20 minutes."
In November, Teaff will ask the coaches to agree to a compromise that would make public only the final ballot that determines the BCS national championship game. That way, he said, voters would not have to worry about offending their peers and creating bulletin board material.
"I think that's a very fair and decent idea," Teaff said.
"If they made me do it, I wouldn't cry about it and I'd still go ahead and (vote)," Rodriguez said. "But I think it's better the way it is."
By Rob Biertempfel
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Boise State football coach Dan Hawkins thought it would be fun to reveal how he voted in the national coaches top 25 poll.
Every week last season, a Boise newspaper published Hawkins' ballot next to one cast by a local sportswriter who voted in the media poll. By the end of the year, however, Hawkins vowed never to do it again.
"There's always some intrigue and drama to it, which helps sell papers," Hawkins said. "But the end result for me -- the heartache -- wasn't worth it.
"It doesn't matter whether it's your team or somebody else's, you just get bombarded by emails and phone calls. It ends up being another issue that we don't need to deal with, so I quit doing it."
Most of the 61 coaches who participate in the ESPN/USA Today poll guard their ballots as much as they do their playbooks. But that could change, now that the polls carry more weight in the Bowl Championship Series selection process.
With so much money at stake -- the per-team payout for each BCS bowl game is $13 million -- there are questions about the ethics of allowing anonymous voters to sway the process.
"A lot of voting is based on tradition and it's very hard for a new school to break into that," said Fresno State coach Pat Hill, who makes his ballot public each week.
"You can bet on one thing: if we're playing (a team), I'm voting 'em high," Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione said.
Dick Weiss, president of the Football Writers Association of America, likened that to "parents voting in a beauty pagent in which their little girl is entered."
The voters in The Associated Press media poll are required to reveal their ballots. The Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association and the FWAA want the coaches to also come clean.
The two groups recently challenged the coaches' code of silence in a letter to Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.
It is the AFCA, not financial backers ESPN and USA Today, that controls the coaches' poll.
The AFCA polls its members every year about making their ballots public. This year, Teaff said, 88 of the 117 Division I coaches voted against it.
"We'll vote on it again next January, and I would be very shocked if it changes," Teaff said.
A handful of coaches, most notably Bob Stoops of Oklahoma, are willing to go public. But most -- including Joe Paterno of Penn State, Walt Harris of Pitt and Rich Rodriguez of West Virginia -- are opposed to revealing their ballots.
"It's my personal opinion and I'd like to keep it personal," Harris said.
"We've got enough things that we do naturally to get ourselves in trouble," Ohio State's Jim Tressel said. "I don't know that we need to add one more."
Said Paterno, "If you disclose it, you have friends in the business or other people who can be alienated by it."
In November 1997, someone leaked Paterno's ballot -- which had Florida State in the top spot instead of Michigan. The voting was done a day after Michigan had upset then-No. 2 Penn State.
Paterno later admitted his ballot was filled out and submitted by associate athletic director Budd Thalman. At the end of the year, Michigan was rated No. 1 in the AP poll; Nebraska finished atop the coaches' poll.
The deadline for submitting ballots is 11 a.m., three hours later than last year. But it still is hard for voters on the East Coast to keep up with the late games on the West Coast. It's even worse for coaches who get in late from road games and who have staff meetings early Sunday morning.
"It's difficult when it's so close down near the end of the season, and you don't actually get a chance to see the teams actually play," said UCF coach George O'Leary. "You have to go based on just what you've read or what you've heard."
O'Leary relies on SportsCenter for information. Paterno gets help from new associate AD Fran Ganter. Harris huddles with his staff and makes his picks in "about 20 minutes."
In November, Teaff will ask the coaches to agree to a compromise that would make public only the final ballot that determines the BCS national championship game. That way, he said, voters would not have to worry about offending their peers and creating bulletin board material.
"I think that's a very fair and decent idea," Teaff said.
"If they made me do it, I wouldn't cry about it and I'd still go ahead and (vote)," Rodriguez said. "But I think it's better the way it is."
