The 20 toughest coaching jobs in America

As personable and likable as Chris Woodward is, no one was shedding tears for him when the Texas Rangers fired him on Aug. 15.

That’s mostly because coaches and managers are hired to be fired (in most cases), and Woodward was keenly aware of the nature of his business. He was well-paid and could go several years without working and still pay the bills.

The stakes are high and the salaries are exploding for coaches in both professional and college sports. No matter the sport, coaching has become a millionaire’s game.

This trend is most stridently prevalent in college football, where athletic budgets, buoyed by mega donor alumnus, have exploded as egos and bragging rights have become a millionaire’s pastime.

Top 20 toughest coaching jobs in American sports

Dallas Cowboys

It’s not necessarily the coach’s job security, but the overall scrutiny the Cowboys coach is under. Jerry Jones has proven to be loyal (re: Jason Garrett) and is loath to yank a coach since that would ultimately reflect poorly on his own decision-making. But with Mike McCarthy, in Season 3, a deep playoff run is likely necessary to keep the job.

University of Texas football

This can be said for many college football programs, but no fan base expects more from its team than the Longhorns. And since Mack Brown’s firing, the wins have been harder to come by. If Steve Sarkisian doesn’t take the Horns back to national prominence this season, his days are numbered, too.

New York Yankees

Like the Cowboys and Lakers, legacy franchises bring a certain level of automatic expectations among their fan base, if not their owners. Few fan bases expect and demand more than Yankees fans. Aaron Boone, who has yet to take them to the World Series in four-plus seasons at the helm, is probably managing for his job this postseason.

Any team LeBron James is playing for

Let’s face it, LeBron is demanding on everyone around him. He’s good enough to throw his weight around and has often been vocal about the direction of his team. If you’re coaching LeBron, you’re working for LeBron.

Texas A&M football

What separates the Aggies job from many others, including the Longhorns, is the unrealistic expectations. Simply put, the Aggies, while possessing all of the accouterments of an elite program, haven’t threatened on a national level since 1992.

Boston Red Sox

Not only do Red Sox have equal expectations and demands as Yankees fans, they have a little brother complex added to the mix. They’ve had five managers in the past decade, including Alex Cora twice, with World Series titles in 2013 and ‘18. With a .500 record, Cora’s job is again on the line.

Los Angeles Lakers

Historic legacies are hard to follow, and few franchises have a more storied history of success than the Lakers. With all of that, comes high expectations, the Hollywood spotlight and the demands of (at least for now) coaching LeBron James.

Kentucky men’s basketball

Few sports teams have such a pristine, proud history than Wildcats basketball and for good reason. But with that history, comes unbridled expectations to challenge for the National Championship each and every season.

Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball

Jon Scheyer is following a legend in Mike Krzyzewski, who won five national titles and an NCAA-record 1,202 games before retiring in April. No one else has 1,000 wins. Good luck following in those footsteps, John.

Notre Dame football

There’s probably only about 10 true blue-blood football programs in the country, and the Fighting Irish are part of this elite. The press coverage rivals an NFL team and the well-healed donor alumnus are barking about this and that from all corners of the country. To be the person in charge at the middle of that storm, takes a special kind of coach.

Detroit Lions

In their 92 seasons, the Lions have won 10 or more games 10 times. Their last playoff win came after their 1991 season, which is their only postseason win since 1957, the last time they won the NFL championship. Since then, they’ve been through 20 different coaches, which, frankly, doesn’t seem like enough.

Texas Tech (any sport)

The Red Raiders aren’t the only Power 5 school stuck in a godforsaken town. But few, if any, are as isolated as Lubbock. It’s nearly five hours from Fort Worth, five hours from Albuquerque, N.M., and more than five hours from El Paso and Oklahoma City. Pity the coach who has to attract suburban athletes to such a place, unless it’s for a bull-riding scholarship.

University of Kansas football

The Jayhawks have won before on the gridiron, but not very often. They’ve won 10 or more games in a season only three times since 1901. The last time came in 2007. There last winning season was in ‘08. Even more intimidating is the wild success of the men’s basketball team, which has won four national championships.

Washington Commanders

Our nation’s capitol is an apropos for what has been going on with the Commanders for the better part of the past 30 years. They haven’t won a playoff game since the 1999 season, and had 11 coaches over the past 30 seasons since Joe Gibbs retired (for the first time) in 1992. They won three Super Bowls in the previous 10 years under Gibbs but have been mired in gridlock like our two houses of congress ever since.

Miami Dolphins

Most football fans under 40 probably don’t realize how dominant and respected the Dolphins used to be. Perhaps they’ve heard references to the 1972 Dolphins, the last NFL team to go undefeated. But they were also a perennial AFC title contender throughout the 1980s. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2000 and have seen 11 head coaches since Don Shula retired in 1995.

Auburn football

Imagine playing less than three hours from your archrival, and that archrival is currently in the middle of a historic run of success. That’s what the Tigers are dealing with in Alabama.

Georgia football

For some reason, the Georgia Bulldogs seem to think they belong in the same class as the all-time blue-blood football programs. Sure, they’re a giant public school in a football-rich region of the country, but until their 2021 title, they hadn’t been atop CFB since 1980. In the decades before ‘80, in fact, Georgia often had a spotty, often losing record.

Tennessee Lady Vols basketball

How do you follow a legend? Pat Summitt’s 38-year run coaching the Lady Vols is likely to never be matched by any coach any where, not just in Knoxville. She won eight national championships and led Tennessee to the NCAA tournament for 30 consecutive seasons and never had a losing record.

Oklahoma football

The Sooners’ history of coaching legends makes this job unenviable. Like at Texas, Alabama, and other rich blue blood programs, every alumnus with money to blow wants to buy their way into the coach’s orbit and tell him who should be starting at left guard. At football meccas such as OU, the coach is not only handling X’s and O’s, but also alumni egos.

Any college baseball team above the Mason-Dixon line

This is just science. Before Michigan reached the CWS championship series in 2019, no school located in the upper midwest or north has played for the title since Eastern Michigan in 1976. The last time northern schools were routinely contending it was Southern Illinois and Ohio State in the late 1960s.

Vanderbilt football

Coaching a private school with little to no football legacy in the toughest conference in the nation is not for the faint of heart. Of course, you could argue that the untenable odds facing the Commodores sort of act as a protection against the head coach. But coaches aren’t built to handle losing. If they are, they’re not coaching long.