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The Birmingham news thinks that Bill Curry would make the right choice for the next Georgia Tech Athletic Director.
There may be candidates with more experience and better credentials on paper, but it'll be hard to find a better man for the job.
The AD has to do 10 jobs in one. He has to be a personnel manager, financial manager and facilities manager. He has to be a fund-raiser, hand-shaker and deal-maker. He has to be an architect, politician, catalyst and leader.
Curry fits that diverse job description because he's a Renaissance man, whose interests and talents go far beyond those of the typical former coach-turned-commentator.
Read the archive of his insightful weekly columns from football season on ESPN.com. Then listen to the ramblings of, say, Lou Holtz.
Compare. Contrast. No contest.
An AD also should care more about the school than the job because he's the CEO of a company whose employees and investors like to think of themselves as family.
Curry is a Georgia Tech man who's more than the school's old football coach. He's an old grad.
This was an interesting comment:
Fans could question his decisions but not his motivation.
Well, the column was so good, I'll go ahead and violate my rule and show you most of the rest:
Some people will argue that Curry has never been an AD or an associate AD or an assistant AD, but he's been a Division I-A head football coach, and a coach is an administrator.
The higher up the food chain the program, the more a coach tends to administer and the less he tends to coach.
Some Georgia Tech people will argue that Curry turned his back on his alma mater when he left there to coach at Alabama, but his mentor, Tech legend Bobby Dodd, recommended the move.
How does a Tech man say no to Dodd? How does a football coach say no to the job once held by Paul Bryant?
A decade and a half after Curry left Alabama for Kentucky, his performance as the Crimson Tide coach is still debated and often derided in this state. But, like Mike Shula, Curry's record got better from year one to year two and from year two to year three.
Curry's third team, like Shula's, won 10 games and finished 10-2. Curry's third team, unlike Shula's, also won a share of the SEC championship.
Curry didn't inherit NCAA probation and sanctions, as Shula did, but Shula hasn't had to deal with backbiting inside the Alabama family, as Curry did.
Some people will argue that Curry, at 63, is a year older than Braine, the man he would follow as AD, but Curry is the youngest 63-year-old you could ever want to meet.
He's a long way from retirement.
Georgia Tech would be a lot closer to a brighter future if it would bring him back home.