To fully understand her impact and longevity, consider that UConn women's coach Geno Auriemma--probably the most prominent figure in the sport today--got his start as an assistant under Ryan from 1981-1985, by which point she had already been the UVA head coach for nearly a decade. Her legend rivals that of Joe Paterno in football and Mike Krzyzewski in men's basketball, which makes her resignation no small matter.
Almost immediately, though, speculation was rampant that Debbie's resignation was far from her choice alone. As Juanita Giles wrote for The Hook,
There's something rotten in the UVA athletic department. Circumstantial evidence it may be, but shrouded in the emotional farewells and hidden among the well-deserved testimonials and laurels are undeniable signs that Ryan was forced out of her job. It may be ugly, but is it necessary?
Ryan’s Cavaliers haven’t made it past the second round of the NCAA tournament in more than 10 years, and in that time there have been five seasons the Cavs didn’t win 20 games, something that happened only once in the previous 17 years...
It’s been an inconsistent and disappointing decade for UVA women’s basketball. So apparently, sometime during this past season, it was decided Debbie Ryan was going to get the boot...
Debbie Ryan’s resignation seems unfair and cruel, but what should happen to legendary coaches when they start slipping? What will Virginia Tech do to Frank Beamer when he stops winning 10 games a season? What will Tennessee do with Pat Summitt when championships dry up? Penn State is chomping at the bit to get rid of Joe Paterno, and everyone knows Florida State fired Bobby Bowden.
What should UVA have done with this amazing woman who built a well-respected program? Sentiment, respect, and loyalty may not trump winning, but as we wave “bye bye” to Debbie Ryan, it sure feels like they should.I hear these types of arguments made frequently, often by people who haven't been in positions of management and don't fully appreciate the decision-making dynamics at play. Fair or not, rest assured that Athletic Director Craig Littlepage didn't WANT to see Debbie Ryan go; rather, his hand was forced as attendance lagged amid several consecutive losing seasons.
A failure to advance past the second round of the NCAA tournament a single time in the past decade is a record of futility that cannot be understated, given the well-documented lack of depth in women's basketball. Whatever magic Ryan used to possess had clearly passed, and attendance at the team's games showed that the fans were noticing.
It's easy for those fans, in retrospect, to bemoan the lack of loyalty shown by the athletic department in Ryan's departure. But they should do so knowing that they were complicit in the decision. Littlepage's decision was a response to the fact that fans had been voting with their wallets for nearly a decade.
As managers, there is never any reward for loyalty unless your customers explicitly value it--nobody ever says "sure, he lost money, but he was a really great and loyal guy"... it just doesn't happen. In this case, the fans' loyalty to Debbie and the women's basketball program lapsed long before the loyalty of department administrators--the empty seats told the tale. Littlepage's ultimate decision merely reflected what his fans had already been saying loud and clear for years.
Any manager who ignores what his customers are telling him (with their wallets or otherwise) isn't long for the game. We can blame those managers when undesirable outcomes arise, but we should and must do so with the realization that they are merely echoing what we as customers have told them. We may claim to want quality television, but we watch reality TV in droves, so that's just what we get. We may say that we value fresh, organic produce, but when we check out at the grocery store, more often than not we're buying Corn Pops and Mountain Dew. Managers won't produce it if you're not buying it.
But beyond that dynamic, the mistake that many people make is assuming that managers face an infinite world of choices (and alternatives) in both the short-term and long-term. If athletic department administrators had remained loyal to the end, waiting for Debbie to resign when she thought she should, in filling her vacant spot they would have found themselves at the mercy of whoever happened to be available on that day. In the meantime, many capable coaches would likely have found employment elsewhere, and there is a very tangible cost to those missed opportunities.
Littlepage knew that Ryan would be resigning sooner or later, and that he would be judged as much (if not more so) on the quality of her replacement as he would on the "loyalty" he displayed in her dismissal. So he pulled the trigger when he felt it was necessary, and hired a replacement that has by all accounts been considered a great hire.
His apparent decision to nudge Ryan out the door a couple years before she would have liked should be viewed much like the New York Yankees' dismissal of manager Joe Torre in 2007. The Yankees knew that Torre was reaching the end of his rope, knew they'd soon be in the market for a new manager, and saw that an incredibly capable replacement (Joe Girardi) was available. So rather than wait for Torre to step down and watch Girardi take a coaching job elsewhere, the Yankees took the leap and made the change. Two years later, they were World Series champions with Girardi as manager (much to my dismay).
Few fans, if any, will blame the Yankees today for making the Torre decision when they did, even if it was somewhat unpopular at the time. I have little doubt that Littlepage and the UVA athletic department will be vindicated when the Ryan decision is reviewed in several years. It's not always popular to make the right decision.
[The Hook]
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