With the recent retirement of Detroit Tigers skipper Jim Leyland and the announcement of his replacement Brad Ausmus, I thought it apropos to recall the very best of Detroit Sports head honchos spanning the past century plus. I'm limiting my selections to professional sports teams from the four majors; the Tigers, Lions, Pistons and Red Wings. Factors considered include but are not limited to; Championships won, regular season success, longevity, legacy reputation in Detroit, Responsibilities relative to the era the coached in.
10. Mayo Smith - 363-285, 4 seasons, Won 1968 World Series
-Far from the teams first choice, Mayo Smith became manager by default for the Tigers in 1967. The next season, 1968, the year of the pitcher, Smith directed a talented pitching staff featuring Mickey Lolich and 31-game winner Denny McClain and a deep and diverse offense that featured nine players with double digit home-run totals despite the all-time low earned run averages being posted around baseball that summer. In his first three seasons the Tigers averaged 95 wins but Smith was let go following a disappointing 79-83 1970 season in favor or a more noteworthy name, Billy Martin.
9. Mickey Cochrane - 348-250, parts of six five seasons, Won 1935 World Series
-"Black Mike" as he was none was a tough as nails ball player who won two MVP's in a short but exceptional career as a catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and later the Tigers. So respected was Cochrane as a player during his tenure in Detroit that at the age of 31 he was named player/manager and won the MVP despite Lou Gehrig winning the triple crown. And this was without the WAR stat. Cochrane transformed the Tigers into contenders with a great will to win and a fearless approach. Detroit won the pennant in 1934 and thw World series the following year. In 1937 however Cochrane took a pitch to the head which ended his career and threatened his life. He never returning full-time to baseball as a player or manager.
8. Larry Brown - 108-56, 2 seasons, Won 2004 NBA Championship
-Larry Brown, LB, or pound for pound as he was dubbed by Rasheed Wallace, is one of basketballs great coaching vagabonds. Brown has coached and won in the NBA, the ABA, the NCAA and the Olympics. But his finest hour came with Detroit in 2004. He was brought to the Pistons to replace a successful young up and coming coach in Rick Carisle and help Detroit win a title. He accomplished that goal in just over nine months. The next season the Pistons were one play away from making it back-to-back, but fell short in seven games to the San Antonio Spurs. And though Brown departed on anything but good terms, it's hard to imagine the Goin' to Work Pistons would have the same legacy without the guy who taught them to "play the right way".
7. Jim Leyland - 700-597, 8 seasons, Reached World Series in 2006 & 2012
-Though there were many detractors during his time as manager of the Tigers and while not winning a World Series during his eight year tenure will always sting a little, there is no disputing the place in Detroit History that Jim Leyland has earned. The most consistently successful manager in Detroit Tigers history, Leyland took the Tigers to the postseason in five of his eight seasons, won three division titles and took the AL pennant twice reaching the World Series in 2006 and 2012. Leyland ended a 19-year playoff drought for the Tigers, a 22-year Pennant drought and made more postseason appearances than any manager in Detroit Tigers history. We will miss Jim Leyland even if we don't realize it now.
6. Buddy Parker - 47-23-2, 6 seasons, won 1952 & 1953 NFL Championships
-The only Lions coach to make the list, Parker, predictably predates the Superbowl era as Detroit's headman. Teaming with Bobby Layne for the first half of the fifties, Parker won two thirds of his games and two NFL titles with a "two-minute" offense that would fit better in today's game than the ground and pound era it succeeded in. The Lions success ended when injuries and age depleted their once revolutionary roster to little more than a memory. We're still waiting to return to the promised land as Lions fans.
5. Mike Babcock - 376-170-76, 8 seasons and counting, Won 2008 Stanley Cup
-After the disappointing Dave Lewis era, Babcock was able to restore the Red Wings to their previous status as an annual contender for the cup. Taking over in 2005 he took Detroit to the playoffs as is the annual tradition, the next season they went to the conference finals, and in 2008 and 2009 they went to the Stanley Cups Finals hoisting the trophy in '08. Today Babcock continues to carry on the Detroit Tradition as a new era of Wings, with a third captain in thirty years, are still contending for titles every season.
4. Jack Adams - 413-390-161, 21 seasons, Won 3 Stanley Cups ('36,'37,'43)
-The first coach in Red Wing history, Adams took over the Detroit Cougars, who became the Falcons prior to the teams final change to the more familiar, permanent moniker. Adams was an innovator, a key figure in the early NHL who would eventually become one of the first modern general managers and have the honor of his name bearing the leagues coach of the year award. He won three Stanley Cups, guided the wings to six more, impressive even in an era of just six teams.
3. Sparky Anderson - 1331-1248, 17 seasons, Won 1984 World Series
-Having proven doubters wrong previously in Cincinnati as manager of the Big Red Machine, winning two World Series and four pennants in the first nine-tenths of the seventies, Sparky Anderson came to a young and talented Tiger team in the ultra-competitive AL East in 1979 and boldly predicted that the middle of the pack Tigers would be a pennant winner in the next five years. It's seems unlikely that Sparky could have known how accurate his predication would come to be, but Detroit won the World Series five years later in 1984 fueled by a remarkable 35-5 start. Anderson became the first manager to win over 100 games with two different teams, the first to win a World Series in both leagues and the Tigers won an average of 92 games and finished third place or better for six straight years from 1983-1988. Anderson continued to manage until 1995, the year after the baseball strike, he claimed it was the state of baseball that a strike could happen that made him hang it up. His 2,194 wins as a manager put him sixth all-time. His 1,331 with the Tigers are most in franchise history. Sparky died in November of 2010, few people have had the long-term impact of Detroit sports that Anderson has., he will always be a Detroit Sports Icon.
2. Chuck Daly - 462-261, 9 seasons, Won 1989 & 1990 NBA Championships
-Along with "Trader Jack" McCloskey, Chuck Daly, nicknamed Daddy-Rich for his debonair style and suit selection, transformed the Pistons from Bad to Bad Boys, from Chumps to Champs and from an afterthought of Detroit Sports to an icon that has come to define the people of Metro Detroit as much or more so than any of Detroit's professional sport franchises. In a league with Bird's Celtics, Magic's Lakers and Jordan's Bulls, Daly made the Pistons the premier team, two-time Champions who were one call or twist of fate away from three-peating after being beaten by the Lakers in a controversial seven game finals in 1988. Daly did it with defense in a high-paced era of offensive offense, the Jordan Rules, exercising the demons of the Boston Garden, stopping the veteran Lakers and the surging young Blazers in equally dominate finals performances, Daly like Anderson behind him and Bowman ahead him is a fixture of Detroit Sports History that will always exist.
1. Scotty Bowman - 410-193-88-10, 9 seasons, Won three Stanley Cups (97, 98, 02)
-The only coach on the list who could lay claim to a number one spot on an all-time list of all of his sport or any sport for that matters' list...Scotty Bowman is the epitome of a great coach. Elite success in multiple situations in multiple eras with multiple franchises. Bowman took the expansion Blues to three straight cup finals, won five Stanley Cups with Montreal, another with Pittsburgh and of course three with the Red Wings taking them from the prefaces of greatness to the summit. The Red Wings were known as the dead wings during the early and mid-1980's there was little interest in the city with the Pistons and Tigers competitive and the Lions having elite players in Billy Sims than Barry Sanders at running back. Bowman replaced Brian Murray and after a few hick-ups including a first round exit to the Sharks in 1994 and a Stanley Cup sweep at the hands of the underdog Devils in 1995, eventually made Detroit into a dependable powerhouse that remains the NHL's premier franchise and holds on to the Hockey Town Moniker established during his days.
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