UCLA Basketball: Planes, Trains, and Auto-sabotage

Two weeks ago it was an airplane with a banner; today it was one of those ad-toting trucks. The guerrilla campaign to get rid of UCLA Basketball Coach Steve Alford is underway…too late to do anything but sabotage its own goals.

I have made no secret, either in this space or on Twitter, that I think 1) Steve Alford is unfit to coach UCLA basketball and 2) he should be fired immediately. Like, an in-the-locker-room-in-Las-Vegas-after-the-Pac-12–Tournament-loss-to-USC-‘That-was-so-awful-that-you-have-to-leave-right-now’ kind of immediately.

I hated the hire from the moment I heard of it. The search and announcement were embarrassing, and it’s only gone downhill from there. I was heartbroken when I fell for BruinsNation.com’s 2014 April Fools prank that he’d been hired away by Indiana. I would have been fine (ecstatic, rather) if he’d been fired mid-season after the humiliating loss to Kentucky last season.

My dislike for Alford is so irrational – I don’t like the way he looks or the way he talks; he just sets my teeth on edge – that when this basketball season started, I told Mike that I wouldn’t be able to cover much basketball because I knew I couldn’t be trusted to write about him with the kind of professionalism or good faith befitting this web site. When I finally did write about basketball, it was in an only-kind-of-joking fantasy piece about the entire men’s basketball program having been shut down in 2008.

The reason I run through all this is to provide context for my thoughts on the airplanes and the truck ads. I am no one’s idea of an Alford supporter. You’ll never catch me saying that we need to give him a fair shot or credit him with specious tournament accomplishments. So let’s get that out of the way: the sooner Alford is fired, the better.

This battle of 2016 is over, and the #FireAlford crew lost

Mar 14, 2014; Las Vegas, NV, USA; UCLA Bruins athletic director Dan Guerrero during the first half against the Stanford Cardinal in the semifinals of the Pac-12 Conference college basketball tournament at MGM Grand Garden Arena. The Bruins defeated the Cardinal 84-59. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /

But here’s the rub. No matter how much I wish it weren’t true, Alford is not getting fired this year. Period. End of discussion.

The message last week with the letter and Dan Guerrero‘s press conference couldn’t be more clear: ‘We hear you, fans, and acknowledge your dissatisfaction, but Steve Alford will coach the team next year.’

No amount of passion, no list of signatures, no novel mode of transportation-based advertising will change that fact.

We know this because Guerrero has already taken the fans’ opinion into account. Whether it was the plane, the petition, the student protest, the woeful attendance – whatever the trigger may have been, Guerrero hastily contacted major donors to see if there was sufficient financial support to pay Alford’s hefty buy-out. The decision that came out of that process was no, UCLA would not be buying out Alford’s contract.

The meeting during which Guerrero would have fired Alford was instead the meeting that resulted in Alford returning his contract extension and penning an open letter.

No further public spectacle on the part of the disaffected fans will make Guerrero say, ‘Oh, wow. I underestimated how dissatisfied they really were with Alford. I guess we’ll go ahead and make a coaching change now after all.’

No, that moment has passed. It’s time to regroup and think about next steps toward reaching the final objective of replacing Steve Alford with a competent and committed basketball coach.

The war is still winnable, but it requires discretion and flexibility

It would be one thing if, now that we know Alford’s not getting fired this year, these ads and public displays served merely as ways for fans with spare cash to blow off steam and emote about the sorry state of their beloved Bruins. It’s not how I choose to spend my money, and I tend to find these kind of grand public gestures off-putting and embarrassing – but everyone’s different.

There is no benefit to these public spectacles. None. There is only cost.

Unfortunately, though, these things don’t happen in a vacuum. There’s still that pesky (if lazy and unfair) narrative that UCLA Basketball fans are unreasonable, entitled, and rabid. I’ve said before that I think that trope is ultimately unwarranted, but this kind of spectacle with the banners and the moving billboards only serves to reinforce it.

This isn’t a stereotype we want to lean into; it has real consequences. We have reports that high-profile candidates have chosen not to come to UCLA because of the perception that the fans are quick to turn on a coach not deemed worthy of John Wooden‘s legacy and are likely to create a distracting level of pressure that renders success impossible.

Remember, the ultimate goal here is not just firing Steve Alford. That’s likely to happen whether or not these visible protests turn next season into an absolute circus. The ultimate goal is to replace him with a talented and qualified coach. But those guys – whether you prefer a Tony Bennett or a Jay Wright or a Shaka Smart or a Gregg Marshall – have options. Reinforcing the unreasonable fanbase narrative only serves to make UCLA a less attractive option to these highly sought-after coaches.

I could be persuaded, perhaps, that that’s a risk worth taking if it served to get Alford out the door this year instead of next (or, heaven forbid, any further down the road). But, as we’ve already established, that’s not happening.

There is no benefit to these public spectacles. None. There is only cost.