When the University of Wisconsin sought to end a three-decades-long freefall in football, the Badgers hired an assistant coach from the University of Notre Dame to right the ship.
The Packers, whose streak of futility helped make the franchise a joke to the National Football League, picked an assistant from the dominant team of the 1980s, the San Francisco 49ers, to begin climbing back towards respectability.
Neither coach experienced a championship in his first season. In fact, Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez and the Packers' Mike Holmgren endured several seasons of close calls and near misses before the former led the Badgers to the Rose Bowl in 1994 and the latter took Green Bay to the Super Bowl following the 1996 season.
The Brewers, meanwhile, hired the right-hand-man of one of baseball's best and most successful managers when Ned Yost was tabbed to take over for Jerry Royster following the 2002 season. The team's backup catcher during the beaten-to-death 1982 season, Yost apprenticed under the Braves' Bobby Cox, who brought 14 straight divisional championships to Atlanta.
Yost, who has spent much of his tenure working with stop-gaps and fill-ins, has finally brought winning baseball back to Milwaukee, thanks to an impressive crop of young talent that has finally reached the major leagues. Still, he has become Public Enemy No. 1 in town this year as the Brewers went from 24-10 with a 7 1/2-game lead in the National League Central to trailing the Cubs by 2 ½ games with a week to go in the regular season.
It's amazing just how baseball-savvy the city of Milwaukee has become. The same people who vowed never to attend another baseball game after the 1994 strike, and again after the Miller Park tax plan passed, and again when the Selig family couldn't turn the corner is suddenly up-in-arms over the team's performance.
Never mind that the Brewers are playing meaningful games in late September for the first time in 15 years, what's important now is to complain about who's to blame. And naturally, for these people, the convenient target is Yost.
Say what you want about him, but the bottom line is this: no manager since Phil Garner in 1992 has had the Brewers playing games that meant a damn thing on Sept. 23. He's dealt with an influx of youngsters who have never faced the pressure of a big league playoff race -- not to mention the pressures of playing in a city that hasn't smelled success in 15 years -- a pitching staff that has melted down thanks to repeated injuries to its ace and the collapse of a reliable starter, and he's also had to juggle a glut of situational outfielders that, no matter how much fans have cried for a trade, are just as unattractive to other teams.
This is, no matter how much of a disappointment it may be, a playoff race. Fans around here are freaking out and second-guessing every single decision made regarding the team as if it has been a championship contender for decades.
It's time to relax. It's time to step back and stop grousing about every little thing that goes wrong.
Maybe the Brewers don't win the division this year; worse things have happened to this ball club. The only thing that could be worse than another losing season is waking up one morning and realizing that you missed the opportunity to enjoy a playoff race.
Alvarez and Holmgren didn't win championships the first time around. The Packers got stomped by the Cowboys for three straight seasons before finally reaching the promised land and Alvarez needed four years to get competitive enough to take Wisconsin to Pasadena. Few people were calling for their heads when their teams were coming up short.
This was the first year that the Brewers were a legitimate contender. Winning the division would be a great, great accomplishment, but it just might not be in the cards this year.
In the meantime, leave Yost alone -- like you did to Holmgren and Alvarez. Good things come to those who wait.
