A College Football Team is Not a Startup
Why do people talk like this?
I didn’t realize this needed to be explained, but there are many ways that the University of Michigan’s defense is not like a startup business. Still, though, their new coordinator, Mike Macdonald, pledged to bring a “startup mentality” to the program. Unlike most startups, though, Michigan football is over 140 years old. Unlike most startups, Michigan football actually makes money—it brought it in over $120 million for the university in 2019. But it’s also not exactly a growth business.
But John, you’re being too literal. Obviously Michigan is not a startup, but he’s talking about a MENTALITY.
OK, well, what exactly is this mentality? As Macdonald says, “We’re 10, 11 guys sitting in a room, dreaming up what we want it to look like and how we want to operate.” Well, that’s sort of just coaching, right? Also, I guess the “we” in that sentence is the coaching staff, because Michigan’s defense obviously has way more than 11 guys. Which is sort of the point—a football team is a huge operation with a giant staff, not exactly a room full of guys eating ramen noodles.
But maybe there’s something about Macdonald’s background, something specific to his approach that is “startup”-like. The story mentions him taking a job as a consultant with KPMG—which is not actually a startup, but a giant multinational corporation with over 200,000 employees, but fine—except that he never actually worked there. As the story goes on to say, he got hired by the Baltimore Ravens before he ever started as a consultant.
So what the hell is this nonsense? Why must we frame everything through the lens of tech startups, even when the analogy is so forced?
Well, one reason is for the aura of youth. Michigan has made a big deal about the youth of its new coaching staff—the average age of Head Coach Jim Harbaugh’s assistants is just 35. They seem to think this will help with recruiting, and a “startup mentality” is certainly associated with young and innovative minds.
But I suspect another reason is a fear of bigness. The great thing about phrases like “startup mentality” and “startup culture” is that they conjure up images of bare offices with a handful of passionate, dedicated employees building something from scratches. But the actual companies that normal people associate with these images—former startups like Amazon, Facebook, Uber, etc.—are giant corporate behemoths worth billions of dollars.
You can see how this would be useful to a college football coach. In the same way that the veneer of startup culture can mask the power and influence of major tech companies, talking about a “startup mentality” is a good way of exaggerating the influence of a co-defensive coordinator in the vast scheme that is Michigan football.
Some of this is to nefarious ends. After all, Macdonald’s image of “11 guys sitting in a room” completely ignores the players, who are of course the most important component of a football team and who receive no compensation from the university, despite being responsible for the games that produce hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. You can only justify this disparity by imaging the players as mere extensions of a coach’s brilliance.
But I think the main reason people talk like this is more innocent. What I mean by a “fear of bigness” is a more personal thing, a worry about being simply a cog in a vast machine. The fact is, Michigan football is huge operation whose success or failure will have little to do with Macdonald. But this is a tough thing for Macdonald himself to admit. He would rather picture himself imposing some new mentality on Michigan’s defense.
This temptation is not unique to football. There is a whole class of workers now who see their jobs as creative or intellectual, and their work as therefore individualistic. These creative professionals resist any characterization of their work as similar to assembly line work, where what they do is actually easily replicable or even automated. Whether this is true or not is less important than this attitude’s impact on class consciousness—I don’t think anyone who tries bring a “startup mentality” to something ever thought about joining a union.
I sent you this article and I'm a sucker for Michigan football content, so I know I shouldn't complain too much. But still, a few things:
1) You say Mike Macdonald and his "startup mentality" undermine a potential class consciousness, but he clearly QUIT HIS FINANCE JOB to pursue a career where he might actually do something of value. His example should be celebrated!!
2) I don't think your characterization of Macdonald's "fear of bigness" is wrong, because I agree that he's trying to seem more important than his particular role within the Michigan Football Team, but I think your analysis is inverted. Like, he's not some big institution trying to create the illusion of 11 go-getters in a room, he's a guy vibing trying to create the illusion of something more vast.
A key factor you ignore is that Macdonald, whose highest position so far has been NFL position coach, is not really qualified to be Michigan's defensive coordinator. So in order to pitch his hire, Macdonald and Michigan have been relying on his relationship to more established commodities like Todd Grantham and John Harbaugh, while emphasizing his supposed wide acumen and command of different philosophies.
At the risk of making a ref to a terrible show, the "startup mentality" is Macdonald's "It's Toasted." It's less thesis statement than tagline to distract from more uncomfortable questions, like, "why couldnt Michigan hire someone with an actual track record, and what does that say about the state of the program?" Which I guess ultimately does get you back to "the success or failure of Michigan football has little to do with Macdonald" regardless of what he says.
*I suppose I am a glutton for pain, but I still think the outcome could be success in the not-too-distant future! It's fair to be skeptical of Michigan's youth turn on staff, sure, but at least it is 1) A strategy and 2) different from what we've been doing.
3) There seems to be a recurring theme in these posts where you underestimate how much coaching matters, and that impulse deserves some pushback. I don't think Michigan's season is gonna be determined by the particulars of our base defense or whatever, but it's not like the defensive coordinator doesn't matter! He's still in charge of developing talent and making sure Ohio State's receivers dont shred our secondary for 60 minutes again. Like, Macdonald DOES matter as an individual, particularly because of his relationship to labor!