Professional sports is as intricate, subtle, baffling, and deceptive as any endeavor in the sphere of modern life. How does a society create an effective political system? How does a political system manage a successful economy? How does a family manage a viable family farm? Hard to know. How does one put together a championship sports team? This question, the sports fan readily embraces and expounds upon.

When teams fail, sometimes it’s because fundamental mistakes were made. The observer is pained that what is obvious to him is not apparent to the professionals in charge.

The Seattle Sounders and the University of Washington football team are cases in point.

New people are brought in to improve the team. How can one tell who is likely to be successful, and who is not? Sometimes one wants an experienced player. Sometimes a player with youth and potential is preferred. It’s easy to bring in a player or coach who has been successful for many years and hope he will play at a high level for a few more years. More difficult is to spot the player on the verge of stardom who will be great for many years to come. The ability to acquire such players is the mark of a successful team.

A young player who is hungry, ambitious, inexpensive, and unscathed by the years augurs better for a team than the veteran who has accomplished much with bigger teams, commands a high salary, and is increasingly injury-prone.

A Northwest college football team who signs a coach from a big California program will always be at risk of losing that coach to a bigger, more glamorous college, in California, or elsewhere. When the Washington State Cougars signed a coach from a smaller school in Washington, that was a sound move. For the Huskies to sign a coach from Boise State is a sound move, because Washington is a bigger school, and offers the coach an opportunity to achieve goals not achieved in Idaho.

When the Sounders sign an older player from a bigger league, that is risky. The player might well look back at the glory days of his career, and be happy to collect a substantial paycheck and a glamour position with a smaller team, whose accomplishments couldn’t rival those of his former club. Unlike the youngster from the Seattle suburbs, who has dreamed of playing for the Sounders (and bigger clubs) who dreams of winning MLS championships and, perhaps, moving to a bigger stage.

Better the team that brings out success in its players than the team that hopes players successful in the past will bestow success on the team in the present and future.