“Win the crowd” - Proximo to Maximus, Gladiator. One of the best quotes in movie history, and one of the deepest.
In any sport, there is only one “winner” at the end of each season or tournament. Everyone else is a loser. What that means is that the odds are very much against you, even if you are an elite team. Therefore, it is important not just to WIN, but also how to manage LOSS.
Because you will lose more than you win, even as a top program (Alabama being the exception in the last few years, of course). If your only goal is to build and prepare for winning constantly, there will be a lot of losing on the way, and even a fair amount of losing once you have reached the pinnacle.
Mario doesn’t understand this. It’s ok to win, and it’s ok to lose, but HOW you do it, communicate and “win the crowd” is important. Why?
Because ultimately, it’s all one ecosystem. The crowd, the team, the coach, the university, it’s important for all to be aligned; if not, impatience, malaise and team unity is greatly impacted. This leads to recruiting being impacted, which ultimately hurts the “winning” aspect.
Businesses understand this. It’s not enough to have a great product, but HOW you market it is critical. The world is littered with bankrupt companies that had a better product, but failed in addressing the market.
What does this mean in concrete for Mario? He has to acknowledge that year 1 wasn’t as successful as it should have been, and WHY. Yes, the players aren’t as good as they should have been (why didn’t you bring in better transfers? Are the really that bad that they couldn’t beat MTSU with some coaching?), but Mario needs to take some blame, as do the coaches. Which coaches, and what steps they are taking to address these failings are important, and nothing of the sort has been addressed.
“Win and they will come” is not sufficient… you will lose more than you win.
