Pat Riley never did an online chat. Don Shula didn't know from laptops. Could anyone picture Jack McKeon putting down his cigar long enough to text-message?
There is a generation of old-school coaches who still believe mail arrives with a postage stamp, not with a mouse click -- a generation that is officially history now in South Florida.
If you wanted a symbol for the newness and needed fresh air sweeping through our pro sports teams at the moment, you got it Thursday afternoon as new Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, self-confessed ''computer geek,'' conducted a live online chat with fans.
So what if it was billed as a 30-minute chat and Spoelstra signed off after only 18? A head coach directly addressing fans is pretty remarkable stuff, even if it was only a dozen questions and mostly perfunctory replies.
(By contrast, we would be thrilled if Dolphins vice president in charge of being invisible Bill Parcells would deign to answer questions from reporters, let alone fans).
A KEY QUESTION
Too bad Spoelstra signed off early, though. He never got to the question from Greg C. of Miami, who wanted to know how he reacts when people ask what he will do when Riley changes his mind again and wants his old job back.
Kidding about that, of course. It seems Riley finally has retired as a coach for real, content to continue as club president while Spoelstra, 37, checks in as the NBA's youngest head coach.
Riley's longtime assistant-turned-hand-chosen-successor made it clear, in a chat reply to Sergio of Miami, that he will favor more of an up-tempo style than was Riles' m.o.
''With guys like Dwyane [Wade], Dorell [Wright] and Shawn Marion, we have an extremely quick and athletic group of guys and we want to take advantage of that,'' Spoelstra typed into cyberspace. ``We'll want to attack early in the clock and let our athletes do what they do best.''
The new coach was noncommittal on the draft although, if the Ping-Pong balls fall right, it seems Memphis point guard Derrick Rose might better suit Spoelstra's attack style than Kansas State forward Michael Beasley.
A chatter from Gainesville asked if Spoelstra could build a champion from the current core.
''Sure,'' came the Internet reply. ``We're very excited about our young, athletic core. We feel that if this summer we get a solid draft pick and make some moves in free agency that it can be the building blocks for something very exciting in Miami.''
Here's the thing, though.
Spoelstra won't make those draft choices, engineer any trades or decide the direction in free agency. Input? Sure. But the decisions are all Riley, and his protege has no illusions.
''I'm not confused by my position,'' Spoelstra said before Thursday's online chat. ``Pat is still my boss. He will be hand-picking the guys.''
We are in an interesting place right now with the leadership of all four of our major pro franchises.
South Florida suddenly leads the nation in inexperience at the head coach/manager level, and with none of our Big Four pro teams is any real power held by that ostensible leader.
The Heat, Dolphins, Marlins and Panthers have overshadowing front-office figures who control personnel and major decisions, power brokers who run the franchises and shape their futures far more than the men hired to coach and manage.
This is something different, a fairly sweeping change that seems for the better. And in South Florida sports as in Washington politics, the promise of change alone can be invigorating. Some might think of change as scary, but what is even scarier is a 1-15 football team or a 15-67 basketball team embracing the status quo. So change chugs all across our sports landscape.
The Heat coach always called his own shots with utter autonomy when it was Riley; now it's Riles upstairs in a business suit making all the moves and handing all the pieces to his heir. Erik the Kid might be the cook, but Riley is writing the menu and deciding the ingredients.
A bit farther north, the Dolphins open their first minicamp Friday under first-year coach Tony Sparano, but he is hardly the man in charge. Dolphins head coaches from Don Shula on through to Nick Saban always had the power to draft and sign the players they wanted. Now it is the football czar Parcells (and to a lesser extent general manager Jeff Ireland) shaping the roster that Sparano gets to play with.
THE PANTHERS
It will be something similar with our hockey team, when Panthers general manager Jacques Martin, stripped of his head-coaching duties but not his power, chooses the man who will replace him as coach. It is a strange situation that leads most following it closely to surmise Martin will bolster his own power base by hiring a coach to whom he can attach marionette strings.
Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez, sage veteran on the local pro scene now with one year and a month's experience, has no real power, either, in deciding who is in his dugout. He works under a strong, empowered general manager in Larry Beinfest. And he works for an owner, Jeffrey Loria, who had the chutzpah to fire Joe Girardi because he wasn't acquiescent enough -- even as Girardi was NL Manager of the Year.
Gonzalez, Spoelstra, Sparano and whoever is the Panthers' next coach will get credit for turning around losing teams or blame for failing at that -- when none will have a whole lot to do with the rosters handed them.
For Spoelstra, the timing of Thursday's online chat was a reminder of the imperative to turn the Heat around quickly.
A year from now, he would like to be too busy to chat, on account of a little thing called the NBA playoffs.
