Holmgren & La Russa: Cross-Sport Doppelgangers
Posted Nov. 25, 2008 at 10:02 am by Mike Seely
I've been thinking a fair amount about what Mike Holmgren's head coaching legacy will ultimately be — whose it best compares to. Assuming Holmgren, a Bay Area native, takes the reins of, say, the San Francisco 49ers within the next year or two and coaches until the age when most Americans retire, I think he'll end up with a career mirroring that of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, a Tampa native who has long counted the Bay Area as his off-season headquarters.
The tale of the tape is as follows: Holmgren has coached for 17 seasons, won one Super Bowl, three conference titles, and has a career winning percentage of .596 with two different teams. Meanwhile, La Russa, in the course of 30 seasons with three teams, has won two World Series titles, five league titles, and has a career winning percentage of .534. While both men's presence in their respective Hall-of-Fames are virtually ensured, La Russa didn't silence his critics — who generally claimed that his "genius" status was overblown; that his teams rarely made it to the promised land — until he piloted an underdog Cardinals team to the 2006 World Series title. I think Holmgren, by virtue of coming up short in his lone Super Bowl bid in Seattle, will have to clear a similar hurdle to waltz into Canton as a true legend of the headset. Time will tell.
