Nearly every board member, club sponsor and coterie group member I have ever meet or seen at work within a club has next to no idea about football coaching.
When it comes to the uniquely different position of an AFL club coach, they know even less.
The senior coach is the central point of an entire organisation. He deals daily with everyone above and below him — assistants, players, medical and sports science staff multiple times a day. Add in football bosses, the CEO, COO, sponsors, parents, auxiliary staff, fans and the media almost every other day.
There is no job quite like it. It is mentally extraordinarily demanding.
And that's before you even get to game plan, player form, injuries and the relentless noise of the media cycle — positive and negative.
But board members, and others in the inner sanctum, think they know best.
Sacking the coach is, in most cases, the easiest — or rather, the laziest — way clubs look for a quick fix.
Think of Richmond and Collingwood. When the Melbourne media was baying for blood and calling for the heads of Damien Hardwick and Nathan Buckley, the clubs held firm.
The Tigers' flag in 2017 and Collingwood's cruel near miss in 2018 showed exactly what would have been lost — three premierships for Hardwick at Richmond and a near-premiership for Buckley's Collingwood.
Which brings me to Michael Voss, who just happens to be at Carlton and under the pump.
At Carlton, sacking coaches has for a long time been a sport. In the halcyon days careers of quality coaches and people were cut short amid of cocktail of money, ego and thirst for the power of being right. Good people and good coaches, gone.
I've known Vossy for over 33 years — as a player, teammate, mate, captain, coach of the Brisbane Lions, senior assistant at Port Adelaide and now senior coach at Carlton.
In many ways, Vossy IS Aussie rules and Aussie rules is Vossy. He's more serious these days, but then again, so are all my former teammates who have gone into coaching at any level.
Our conversations are always light and fun, usually at the AFL Hall of Fame night or the Brownlow Medal count — the tyranny of distance being what it is.
The first year he was at Carlton, I couldn't help myself at the Hall of Fame night: I told him straight up they needed more pace and skill. He agreed, and said protectively that they didn't have it yet, but they were working on it.
Every year since, the conversation has been the same — just with new updates.
Brisbane is a good example of what patience looks like. After Vossy and Justin Leppitsch began their rebuild, it took many seasons of patience, recruiting and cultural change before the Lions became the powerhouse they are today.
And despite what people assume, culture is ultimately owned by the players. Coaches demand it, but it's the players who decide whether to buy in and carry it. The senior coach is always the most influential figure — but it's the playing group that controls culture in practice.
Then there's talent and its execution. Confidence follows evidence — it's built through training, performance and results over time. Every coach inside a club drives the mental side, building belief through the body of work.
By now it should be clear - being a senior coach is extraordinarily complex. It takes years, sometimes decades, to develop — and even then it doesn't guarantee success. We need to be patient.
Carlton need to learn the habits of winning across four quarters, and that takes time. Some will say they've had enough time. But there can only be one winner a year and seventeen losers. As Ricky Bobby might put it — if you ain't first, you're last. Losing is still part of the game.
I was part of the media world for many years as a player and independent commentator, but something still bugs me.
Some in the media, whether they are former players or experienced journalists, are guilty of a dangerous kind of egotism: the obsession with being right, with predicting future events as though they carry authority. And when challenged, many double down, regardless of the counter-evidence.
Vossy is currently being hunted by some in that pursuit.
They may have valid points and worthy arguments. But it doesn't help — not Vossy, not Carlton, not the journalist and not the outlet.
It's just another game of winning or losing. And when you're the one in the middle of it, it genuinely sucks.
It still annoys me watching it happen to anyone else from the outside. Being a senior coach means it's only a matter of time before it's your turn.
Do I think Vossy should be moved on? I'll let others debate that. What I know is that he will always be a mate, a former teammate and captain of a great side we played in together.
He can't be everything to everyone — but he is a man of his word, and he has genuine integrity. Where there is integrity, there is trust.
You can't coach forever. But Vossy will die trying to win for his men and his club. He is about the team, while too many others are about themselves.
The selfish ones are the people who should be moved on. Those faceless, cashed-up board and coterie members who don't know anywhere as much as they think they do.
Jason Akermanis is a three-time Brisbane premiership player, a Brownlow Medallist and a four-time All-Australian.
