It takes more than just a good coach to win championships. Certainly a head basketball coach has more impact upon the outcome than a head football coach, who these days is generally just the CEO of the business. A basketball coach is CEO and the foreman on the floor. But he still has to have the players. A really good coach can make the results with the available talent be better than they would have been, but there is a limit to what he can do. In one sense college coaching must be more gratifying than coaching in the pros, because in college you can actually coach, as opposed to being an arbitrator for the outsized egos of millionaires, many of whom in another context would be behind bars. On the other hand, in the pros you do not have to recruit, and I feel sure that for most coaches that is the least pleasant function of the job.
In any case, whether the talent comes from recruiting or through the draft, the talent has to be there. And a coach cannot force players to come to his school. He can only sell, as best he can, what the school and staff have to offer. How many superb coaches did not make the grade purely because they were not good salesmen?
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