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Editorial Viewpoints

Time to Think About the Next Great Coaches

By Scott Kraft

Even though the 2002 regular season won’t begin for another three months, here at American Football Monthly we’re already looking ahead to 2003. Well, sort of anyway.

In our August issue, and on this Web site, we’ll name our Hot Coaches for 2002. The coaching positions for 2002 are set, of course, so what we’re really doing is talking about the coaches we think are poised to make a big move for the 2003 season.

The reason for such an endeavor, before the season even starts, is to give you a chance to keep an eye on our Hot Coaches and see how they do over the 2002 season. It also gives you a chance to nominate coaches you believe should be on our list.

As the trade magazine for football coaches, the Hot Coaches list is one of our most important tasks here at the magazine. Any good trade magazine keeps you apprised of present developments, but also has its eye on the future.

This list is one of the ways we do that. Lists such as the Hot Coaches list are, of course, very subjective. So we know you may not necessarily agree with all of the coaches we ultimately choose for this honor. Frankly, that makes it all the more fun.

We would, however, like all of you to participate in the process by nominating coaches you believe are the hot prospects of your profession. They can be offensive or defensive coordinators, or head coaches at smaller Division I-A, Division I-AA programs or Division II programs. The coaches you nominate should be the ones you believe can step into a large Division I-A program and lead it to success.

All of the nominations are confidential. Our goal is to receive as much input from coaches as possible into our deliberations and to make sure we give every candidate fair and complete consideration.

Since we’ve began our annual tradition of naming Hot Coaches, some of the coaches on our list have seen their careers advance. Last year, we named Oregon offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford, who’s now the head coach at California. In 2000, we named Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen, who became the head coach at Maryland in 2001 and promptly lead the Terrapins to the ACC Championship and a BCS berth.

We don’t offer these examples to shower ourselves with credit or because we’re visionaries. After all, it’s the athletic director who hires coaches and we weren’t the only ones talking up Tedford and Friedgen.

But it is our job to talk about football coaches – and it is American Football Monthly’s mission, as a magazine dedicated to the job of coaching football – to seriously consider the profession’s rising stars and give them their due on the pages of our magazine.

We believe your input is crucial to making our list the best it can be. Please submit your nominations, along with a brief explanation of why you feel the coach deserves to be recognized, to me via e-mail at skraft@lcclark.com.

Then, stay tuned for our August issue, where we will announce our 2002 Hot Coaches. We think it won’t be the last time you read about their successes.

Extra Points: Viewpoints will be a new content section exclusively on www.AmericanFootballMonthly.com. We hope to offer a variety of opinions and insights on topics relevant to coaching football. By opinions, we mean yours. If you would like to submit a viewpoint to be published on www.AmericanFootballMonthly.com, e-mail me at skraft@lcclark.com for more information.