Gene Chizik Has One of Those "How to Be a Winner" Books

Gene Chizik, author

Honestly, as I look at that introductory quote above, it's not so much Gene Chizik's assertion that Auburn didn't do anything shady during Cam Newton's recruitment that jumps out at me. (I mean, don't get me wrong, I do have my suspicions.) Instead, my immediate reaction is "Gene Chizik has a goddamn book about winning??"

No offense intended to the Auburn head football coach, his team went undefeated in 2010 and for that the BCS national title is well deserved at least until we find out if the check to Cecil Newton has an Auburn watermark on it. But the bar is now set at "Gene Chizik" on who can write books telling us "their way is the right way"?

Really?

The book itself, which is set for a July 5 release, is 282 pages, but I firmly believe that I could have saved everyone a lot of time and energy (and paper) and ghostwritten the Gene Chizik Guide To Winning in a two-page pamphlet. Hell, I probably could have done it on a cocktail napkin.

Ready? Here it is:

Chapter 1
Recruit Cam Newton.

Chapter 2
Call play "36" a bunch of times...

That's a play!

Chapter 3
Stay the hell out of the way.

Chapter 4
Collect trophy.

Chapter 5
Get raise from employer to $3.5 million per year.

THE END

Okay, maybe I'm not being entirely fair to Coach Chizik. I understand that there's a lot more that goes into being a college football head coach than figuratively rolling the balls out and letting your guys "go get it!" You're not only a coach, you're a fundraiser, a salesman, a politician and a boss.

That said, can we all agree on the following:

1. If you're going to write a book telling the fallible masses how they can magically become "the best" (just like you!), then none of your career as an assistant or anything other than the lead dog should count toward your street cred. When I espoused my bewilderment on the radio today at Chizik authoring this book, I had a few people tell me, "Hey, he's been part of three undefeated teams. He knows how to win!"

Um, the two seasons in which he assisted Tommy Tuberville (2004) and Mack Brown (2005) to undefeated seasons do not count on the back of Chizik's "winner credibility" baseball card. If I want to know Tuberville's and Brown's philosophies that shaped those undefeated squads, I'll read their books.

2. So only your career as a head coach should count towards a 282-page missive on "Here's what I did to become the best!" As a head coach, Gene Chizik was 5-19 in two seasons at Iowa State and is now 22-5 in two seasons at Auburn with a national championship. Is he the coach of the defending national champion? Yes. Is he "the best?" No.