If President-elect Obama wants to know the challenges he can expect to contend with in his first 100 days of office, his “honeymoon period,” he need look no further than the state of Michigan.
I’m not talking about what he can learn from Michigan about unemployment, where we are #1!
I’m not talking about lessons he can learn from Michigan about relations with the Middle East, given the large population in Michigan who originate from that part of the world.
I’m not talking about any of these things. Instead, I’m talkin’ football…Wolverine football, and the pressures that come to those who take on new leadership positions in a world saturated with 24/7 media.
The University of Michigan football team brought in a new leader this year, Rich Rodriguez from West Virginia, with expectations that this innovative coach would turn our good football team back into a great one, one that would regularly compete for national championships.
The parallels between the situations facing Rodriguez and Obama are impressive. Like Rodriguez, Obama will come to his new leadership position amidst expectations that he will return the United States back into the world’s premier super power.
Both Rodriguez and Obama face a flat world. The globalized economy is going to be a huge challenge for Obama, with no single country able to dominate the world’s economy any more. Similarly, the flattening of the college football world is a challenge for Rodriguez, a world in which formally dominant programs like Nebraska and Notre Dame find themselves struggling to keep up with the increasing number of colleges investing huge money in their football programs.
Both Rodriguez and Obama must also contend with a vicious 24/7 news cycle that feeds on controversy and that promotes impatience. ESPN and CNN need material to fill up time. Talk radio stations–covering sports or politics–have lots of time to kill too, and consequently don’t pause for a moment to absorb new information before pronouncing something a success or failure–how could he have chosen so and so as starting QB or as head of the Justice Department!?
Is it possible for a leader to thrive in this environment? And to survive, do they have to experience immediate success?
Recent experience in Michigan suggests that success doesn’t have to be immediate. Rodriguez had a horrible first season at Michigan. Unprecedentedly horrible. The Wolverines lost to their arch rival, Ohio State, for the umpteenth time in a row, broke their record of successive years in a bowl game, and even lost to the University of Toledo. (Toledo!)
The 24/7 media should have chewed Rodriguez up and spit him out by now, based on the way they’ve dealt with other people who don’t garner immediate success. But by and large, they haven’t. And it’s illuminating to think of why they’ve laid off so far, and ponder how that might payoff for Obama when he becomes President.
You see, everyone knew that Rodriguez did not inherit a team ready to fit into his new scheme. He didn’t inherit a quarterback compatible with his offensive system. (Heck, he didn’t inherit a quarterback compatible with any division 1 team’s system.) To make matters worse, he inherited only one returning starter on the entire offense. Defense looked like it would be Michigan’s strength, but how strong can a defense be when it is exhausted by the end of the first quarter, getting no chance to rest because of the ineptitude of its offense?
We Michiganders (yep, that’s what we’re called) knew things would get worse before they got better. So far we have been willing to give Rodriguez a chance to demonstrate what he can do when he has had time to implement his new system, with people he has recruited.
I don’t know how long Rodriguez can continue to struggle before people start calling for his head. Another 3-win season and many Wolverine fans will thirst for blood. But show fans some progress, and they’ll wait at least one more year.
Like Rodriguez, Obama has a few returning players–Gates at defense, and those nine folks over at the Supreme Court–but he’ll be bringing in a new team, ready to make dramatic changes from the Bush Administration. And he will inherit insanely difficult challenges. People know that things are broken now, and won’t be fixed overnight. They even expect things to get worse before they get better. This is all to Obama’s advantage.
Let’s hope the hunger of our 24/7 media, and the insatiable appetite of the blogosphere, doesn’t lead too quickly to calls for Obama’s head when things don’t turn around in 100 days.
So far Rich Rodriguez has survived the rigors of the passionate Wolverine fan base. He has managed people’s expectations, while doing everything in his power to turn things around.
Let’s hope Obama can continue to manage the public’s expectations of what he will accomplish in his first term as president.
Although the challenges Obama faces tower over those facing Rodriguez, Obama does have one thing in his favor: unlike Rodriguez, he doesn’t have to compete again in Ohio for four more years.
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