Travis Ford Will Be Fired and That’s Not Really Something to Celebrate

I didn’t know whether I should write this post at the risk of sounding sufficiently sanctimonious about OSU hoops and sports generally. As if I’m operating on a different plane than others when it comes to the way I consume my diet of college athletics.

But I also think it needs to be said so I apologize if it’s dripping with the smugness of a self-satisfied blogger who has watched almost every game Travis Ford has ever coached.

Travis Ford is about to get fired. If you don’t think that’s about to happen after all the chatter, the 20-loss season, the unrest among fans, the emptiness of GIA and the final nail in the coffin from Eddie Sutton himself then you’re simply not living in reality.

Travis Ford will not be the basketball coach at Oklahoma State in a week or a month or whenever Mike Holder decides to light fire to $7 million (less whatever Travis Ford makes at his next job).

And certainly there’s a need for some fresh air. I, like many of you, have felt suffocated by the $20 million noose hanging around the neck of GIA for the last few years. There was an inevitability to the whole thing that was (and is) unfortunate.

Travis Ford is going to be fired because he lost 20 games for the fourth time in OSU’s 107-year history. He’s going to be fired because he went 15-54 on the road in the Big 12 over eight seasons. He’s going to be fired because he won a single game in the NCAA Tournament over eight years.

He’s going to be fired because he finished in the top half of the Big 12 one time. He’s going to be fired because he couldn’t get Markel Brown, Marcus Smart and Le’Bryan Nash out of the first round in two tries (!) He’s going to be fired because going 155-111 in eight years is just not good enough in Stillwater. And he’s going to be fired (mostly) because attendance has gone the way of oil in northern Oklahoma. From the Tulsa World:

In 2008-09, Ford’s first season, Oklahoma State generated $4.65 million in men’s basketball ticket sales, according to the financial reports Oklahoma State must file with the NCAA. Last year, when OSU reached the NCAA Tournament and averaged 7,897 fans per home game, ticket-sales revenue was $2.46 million.

That’s a drop of 47.1 percent, or $2.19 million.

And it will be even worse when this year’s report comes out. Here’s more:

Oklahoma State’s average attendance this season — 5,857 — ranked 58th of 65 Power 5 teams. And in just the past two seasons — from Marcus Smart’s sophomore year to this 12-19 campaign — attendance plummeted 43.7 percent.

So the reasons Travis Ford will be fired are myriad which is usually the case when it comes to firings for on-court performance. There’s not one thing. There are many, many things.

And yet, as I noted here, Ford didn’t quit. His players didn’t quit. They galloped for him until the bitter end. He didn’t have proper horses. But they still galloped hard.

“He’s always been positive the whole year,” said Jeffrey Carroll on Wednesday after the final game of the Ford era. “Great coach, I love him to death. He has made me a totally better player this year. And like just as a team, we’ve grown together as one. So I think this season has made us a lot closer.”

I had breakfast with a buddy on Thursday morning here in Dallas. We don’t really talk much sports usually, but he asked how this blog was going and we sort of got into the Travis Ford thing a little bit. I told him I felt bad calling for the job of someone I don’t interact with and don’t know. It seems like it should be easier but somehow it has become difficult.

He said something interesting. He said he thinks coaches (and high-level executives in general) make a ton of money because nobody wants those jobs. Nobody wants to be publicly scorned because they’re doing a slightly below average job.[1. Side note here: Is sports the only industry where the folks who hold the power of hiring and firing make significantly less money than the people they are hiring and firing? That’s pretty strange, right?]

Rick in accounting doesn’t want to be ridiculed on Twitter because he incorrectly performed a VLOOKUP on Monday afternoon. And so the money offers a sort of alleviation for all the stressors that come with being a public figure.

And I think people think that being paid a lot of money to not do your job (i.e. a buyout) sounds like the best outcome in the world. But it’s not. How could it be? Somebody is about to say, “you are so bad at your job that we will literally give you $7 million (less what you earn somewhere else) to not do your job anymore.” That’s a blow to the ego of anyone who finds an iota of identity in the work they do or prides themselves on their professional effort (so it’s a blow to the ego of every human).

Not only that, but as several people mentioned, when you get fired you’re forced to uproot your family and your kids in high school and middle school and hit restart and make new friends and yeah, nobody wants to do stuff like that.

I’m not trying to pass the hat for a millionaire here but rather recognize the fact that Travis Ford is a real human being and he has emotions and feelings that aren’t directly tied to the size of his paycheck. I think sometimes we mitigate the reality of the lives of others based on how much money they make and think that number justifies our celebration of their dismissal within their profession. It doesn’t … or it shouldn’t.

OK, I think that’s the end of my rant.

Travis Ford should (and will) be fired by Oklahoma State soon and I’m sad about that for him and his family and everyone involved with Oklahoma State basketball.

Not just about Ford. There are support staff folks who will be moving on as well w/o a buyout. Humans with feelings are impacted here.

— thinks we go 8-4 guy (@Pokelahoma) March 10, 2016

But I also think that sadness can co-exist with an excitement of what lies on the other side of the next few weeks. The future of Oklahoma State hoops is about to be bright because it always is when a new coach is hired and new idealogical views are put forth. I’m glad for that, I really am. And we will chat more about that soon (very soon, I believe).

So for now, I’m bummed about the Ford era, hopeful for the future and understanding of why Mike Holder inked that 10-year deal. Because seven years ago he saw in Ford an unrelenting spirit that he wanted to sign up for. It’s been clear that Ford’s players would do pretty much anything for him and Mike Holder saw that. I can see why now.

“People have asked me about it, and they don’t understand the life I live,” Ford said on Wednesday after his last loss. “They don’t understand — they are not around me enough to know my mindset of how I work. I immerse myself into trying to figure out how to help this team every way possible, and, you know, I haven’t really — you know, I put everything I could in trying to figure out how to beat K-State. And now I am thinking about what I could have done differently.”

The unfortunate reality is a complex one but it hinges on a simple truth: the whole thing just didn’t work the way it should have. Ford didn’t live up to the average expectation for Oklahoma State hoops and he and everyone else knows it. That’s OK.[1. Easy for me to say because I don’t have to pay him $7 million minus what he makes somewhere else!] It’s time to move on. And I wish Travis Ford the best. He brought at least a little magic to the Old Lady and delivered several great moments (the Smart backflip, Memphis at home, that first NCAA tournament game, every Kansas home game).

Not enough to make it until the end though.

RIP the Travis Ford era.