By definition the word means temporary — as in brief, passing, fleeting, short-lived. In other words, whoever came up with the idea of using “interim” to describe a fill-in coach knew what he was talking about.
As the Bulls’ Jim Boylan grinds through one of the tougher assignments in sports, the question is whether the experience is even worth it.
Jim Molinari, who was the interim coach at the University of Minnesota before Tubby Smith was hired last year, doesn’t think so. A longtime DePaul assistant and former head coach at Bradley and Northern Illinois, Molinari is now an assistant at Ball State.
“If I had an opportunity to do it again, I don’t think I would — I feel that strongly about it,” he said. “I know how to be a head coach and an assistant. I don’t know how to be an interim. It’s an impossible position if authority doesn’t equal responsibility.”
Lionel Hollins once described the job of interim as “a substitute teacher” because of just that. But there are other drawbacks, Molinari says.
“A great component to success in any situation is time, and you [don’t] have it as an interim,” he said. “I had a great athletic director at Minnesota in Joel Maturi, but I don’t think he realized how hard it is to be an interim coach.”
Molinari went 7-17 as the interim successor to Dan Monson.
“In the end, I was just trying to land the plane,” he said. “But it really wasn’t about my future and it was disastrous for my career, I think.”
Although this is Boylan’s first stint as an interim, he was on two other coaching staffs when interim coaches took over. In Vancouver, Hollins replaced the fired Brian Hill in January 2000 with the team 4-18. Under Hollins, the Grizzlies went 18-42, actually the best coach’s winning percentage in team history to that point. But after the season the team was sold, the front office was shaken up and Hollins was gone.
Boylan was also on the staff in Phoenix when Frank Johnson took over for Scott Skiles. Johnson was rewarded with a contract and lasted two years with the club.
“I’ve been through it two different ways,” Boylan said. “The pressure you have from the job gets magnified when you don’t have something going forward. You’re just hoping things go well and you get the job permanently.”
Boylan, who interviewed twice last year for the Indiana Pacers’ head-coaching job that went to Jim O’Brien, says he could not pass up the opportunity to accept the interim position with the Bulls. But he recognizes the built-in obstacles.
“Since I’ve taken over, we’ve had very little practice time, a lot of games and wear and tear of the season,” Boylan said. “A lot of my job [is] psychological, trying to get the guys to regain their confidence and find some belief in themselves and each other.”
O’Brien was named interim coach of the Celtics after Rick Pitino was fired in 2000. Boston had been 12-22, but O’Brien went 24-24 the rest of the way, kept the job and led the team to the Eastern Conference finals the next season.
“An NBA team during the season is a little bit like an aircraft carrier — it’s not turned around very quickly from a standpoint of new philosophies,” O’Brien said. “It will take a little bit more time for coach Boylan to really have his imprint on the Bulls.”
While Boylan acknowledges being able to “tweak” a few things in terms of lineup and schemes, an interim coach is not often able to make major changes on the fly, particularly when he may be judged at the end of the season by victories and defeats.
“We’re [8-9] since I’ve taken over, and everyone wants to do better,” Boylan said. “But before I took over, we were at 34 percent. Although the strides have not been gigantic, I think the team is moving in the right direction.
“[Besides winning] you also need to create an atmosphere where people can let themselves develop, get better, develop leadership skills, and that’s what we’ve done here. … But these things take a little while to get the foundation set.”
When Blackhawks general manager Dale Tallon promoted assistant Denis Savard to take over for fired coach Trent Yawney in late November 2006, he needed only a couple of weeks before deciding to extend Savard’s contract.
“You don’t want him trying to Band-Aid everything and do things just to have some modicum of success,” Tallon said. “We were looking at the big picture. We still are.”
The Hawks went 15-5-2 in Savard’s first 22 games, including an eight-game winning streak.
“[Then we] hit the skids,” Tallon said. “But how he handled that was really an education for him. He got through the tough part, admitted some mistakes, and that’s what impressed me the most.”
Savard says the contract gave him the freedom and confidence to implement changes.
“I knew deep down there were a lot of things I needed to touch on and to change,” he said. “[The contract] meant we had consistency from up above to the coaching staff to the players who knew [what to expect]. If we bring in 12, 13 new guys the next year, we’re back to square one again.”
Phoenix Suns assistant Alvin Gentry laughingly calls himself the “king of interims” with stints in Miami, Detroit and the Clippers. He found the toughest part to be separating himself from the previous system, which he helped implement and was now trying to change.
“Do you change things? And if you do, is that going to give Scott Skiles a black eye?” Gentry said. “It’s a Catch-22 because obviously Jimmy believes in what Scott did, and now he wants to implement what he wants to do if only to change the attitude and switch the light on. It’s not a black eye toward Scott at all, but it goes through your mind.”
In Detroit, his players’ support outweighed a winning percentage of about .400, Gentry says.
“Management talked to players like Joe Dumars and Grant Hill, and those guys were as responsible as anything, I’d say 90 percent, for getting me the job,” he recalled.
In Miami, however, nothing would have helped Gentry as the Heat hired the high-profile Pat Riley.
“At the time, Pat Riley was the coach in the NBA,” Gentry said. “He put them on the map, and then they won the championship. I would never take that personally. Let’s see, we have a chance to hire Alvin Gentry or Pat Riley … Not a tough choice there.”
Molinari was in the same situation when Minnesota hired Smith, who had coached Kentucky to an NCAA tournament championship. But Molinari said he was never confident he would get the job.
“I don’t think you can put your stamp on something in three months,” he said. “You just can’t, without [players] knowing you’re the guy.”
Molinari believes Maturi, the Minnesota athletic director, treated him fairly, but “if you can get an A-list person, you’re going to hire him.”
And if he had to do it over again?
“I would say no unless I had a guarantee to be the next head coach,” Molinari said. “People say, ‘How are you going to pass up that opportunity?’ But quite frankly, once you take an interim job, all your leverage is gone.”
Pacers Chief Executive Officer Donnie Walsh, who invited Boylan back for a second interview last summer, says he would not hold an unsuccessful interim stint against a head-coaching prospect.
“Right away you know the guy is taking over a situation that wasn’t working,” Walsh said. “I think everyone understands that, and unless you blow up, you’ll come out of it with a better reputation if you handle it the right way.”
Even with the odds not necessarily in his favor, Boylan is optimistic about his chances with Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and general manager John Paxson.
“I would think [they] are smarter than just looking at the record and saying, ‘Well, the team didn’t make the playoffs or you finished seventh or whatever,’ and that they will look at the overall health of team and responsibility of the players,” Boylan said. “They know what’s happening.”
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misaacson@tribune.com
