photo credit: Matthew ToshWhat does it really mean to be great in sports? Is it about winning championships? Is it about forming a dynasty? Is it about breaking records and piling up stats/ What does it mean to truly be great?
In college football coaching to be great is to be Vanderbilt’s Bobby Johnson. No, he wasn’t the coach hoisting the BCS trophy every year. No, he wasn’t the coach atop the SEC standings every year. No, he wasn’t the coach on the front pages of the papers and in the sports blogs every day. He was just the man who wanted the young men he coached to be great. Great men of character.
When Coach Johnson announced his unexpected retirement, he left a void in college football. Not just at Vandy where he has coached for the last 8 years, but in all of college football. In a college football world where a BCS title is all some think about or coaches get themselves into trouble in the media, Johnson personified the coach who was about the students, the school, the education, the formation of character. I am sure he wanted to win more than he did, every coach would. But that was not his main motivation. He wanted to leave the school, the program, the players better than they were when he started and that’s exactly what he did.
College football is worse off with the loss of Johnson. Vandy has lost a great asset to their program. It’s too bad more college football coaches don’t really know what it means to be great and now they’ve lost one of the best examples.
© photo credit: Matthew Tosh
