I’m sure for the last ten hours the text messages have been flying, the tweets tweeting, and the Internet brigade typing comments at full capacity with the news of who is, and who is not on the short list for the next team coach. There are many of us in the community disappointed by the fact that Jimmy didn’t make the short list, as he is and has become such a popular figure in eventing, especially with the news of his appeal for team leadership. I have a huge amount of respect for Jimmy, I’ve read all his books, listened to all his interviews, and if you set up a game of Jeopardy to contain all the quotes he’s famous for saying, I’d probably win unless my opponent was Jimmy himself.
Throughout this coaching search that has become largely popularized and debated by the public, I realized Jimmy possessed a powerful strength that was eluding most of his competition to one degree or another. You see, Jimmy has the strength of the people behind him. Take a look at the Chronicle threads or the EN poll today; he’s the popular vote by a large margin. So going in to all of this, I knew Jimmy’s application probably wasn’t going to hold as much weight to the actual selectors, but I couldn’t help wondering about the ways our sport as a whole could improve by having him as coach. Right now, we are constantly moving, changing, and evolving, but sometimes it seems the direction is clouded. I think Jimmy would have been a great source of unity in the entirety of our sport as he already has the captivation of much of the public. But the reality of this business, and all the others if you really think about it, is that winning medals is first priority and influencing people comes second.
If you had asked me to predict the name of the eventual team coach a few weeks ago and my life depended on the result, I’m not sure I would have said Jimmy. I think the timing of it all was a little bit against him; his opponents all had more recent resumes, more results of producing top riders in recent years, generally speaking just a little bit more ‘with the time’.
This whole selection has been quite bizarre, really, because as much as we, the public, speculate, debate, and muse about who the next coach should be, it’s really a moot point because we have absolutely no say in the decision. But, if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that everyone, the riders, the committees, the public, and the candidates really all have the same objective. Even if our individual preferences for getting there may vary amongst us, reassurance comes in knowing the goal for success is universal.
