Most in Dallas would agree that this is a move that has been needed for some time now. Hitchcock had been relieved of nearly all his duties this past year. The Hunts waited for Hitchcock’s contract to expire instead of just canning him a year or two ago like most had wanted.

Below is the letter sent out by Clark Hunt:

Dear Valued Season Ticket Holder:

Earlier today, I notified Michael Hitchcock that we will not renew his contract with FC Dallas. In a few moments, we will announce the decision publicly through the press release attached, but I wanted to take this opportunity to share the information with you first.

Michael was an outstanding ambassador for our club during his tenure, and we wish him the best in the future. In lieu of hiring another general manager, we will immediately begin our search for a technical director who will assist Head Coach Schellas Hyndman with the day-to-day soccer operations of the club. Hunt Sports Group President John Wagner will continue to oversee the business side of the organization.

Season ticket holders like you are the lifeblood of FC Dallas, and we sincerely appreciate your loyalty. Although we were certainly disappointed to miss the playoffs by such a narrow margin, we were very encouraged by the performance of the club to close the season and we are already diligently preparing for 2010. We look forward to providing you with an outstanding product on the field next season.

Thank you again for your continued support of FC Dallas.

Sincerely,

Clark Hunt

For me this isn’t a shocker as the writing was on the wall. Hopefully this means the club can move forward and get people in place that will actually make this club a real winner again. The problem with Hitchcock was he had too many responsibilities which lead to poor choices. You saw as he had a lesser role in roster decisions the team actually started to come around late in the year.

I think Dallas continues to move forward here, even with a coach that I don’t particularly think is the right fit for them. They showed late in the season that they can be contenders in this league and now they have a winter to get the rest of their roster taken care of in that manner. I have a feeling some moves will be made pretty quickly once roster moves are allowed again. But I will have more on that later.

Because of this 3rdDegree also mentions that General Manager Michael Hitchcock was removed from responsibility for ticket sales.

With fewer and fewer resonsiblities under Hitchcock’s belt, it makes me wonder when the owners are going to pull the final plug on him and let him go from all duties with the club.

To recap, he has already been pulled from responsibility for marketing, corporate partnerships and sponsorship, and a couple others. The soccer side is all he has left now.

I can tell you that around Dallas it is pretty obvious that the club hasn’t done enough to hype the upcoming season. You see very little in terms of advertising and marketing and it explains the extremely low season opener number.

The club saw terrible numbers in the stands a season ago and from where things appear to be headed they will continue to get lower. I just wonder when it will grab the attention of the Hunts and make them make a change there.

If you go around cities like Seattle or Toronto you will see ads, banners and all kinds of media about their clubs. In Dallas you get next to nothing. Maybe a random TV spot at 3am but nothing that stands out and gets the city excited about their club. The marketing of this club has been largely horrible for a while, not just going into this season.

Its a pitty really. It could be time for the supporter groups of this club to stand up and take action for their club’s lack of care really.

Hyndman has spent 24 years as head coach of perennial national power SMU, where he has developed a reputation as a strong tactician and unmatched recruiter. He’s made SMU into one of the national powers in college soccer over the last few years.

Its more obvious that this is a Hunt hire more than a Hitchcock hire. It also makes me believe that this kind of hire puts Hitchcock’s days in Dallas as a GM numbered. Which some won’t find as a bad thing.

Also, the fact that the Hunts are giving Hyndman two positions at once leads me to believe they offered him security that they probably wouldn’t have with anyone else. It was believed that the next coach was going to be a lame duck without some sort of security from the owners.

There are good reasons now to believe Hitchcock’s days are numbered or he is a lame duck as GM with Dallas. He is under pressure as Carrick said to sell tickets. Obviously his dealings in the past in signing players hasn’t worked out as his two biggest flops/mistakes/busts/etc. were more to sell tickets than to improve the club. Those two signings were of course Denilson last year and Shaka Hislop the year prior. Neither worked out well for the club, both were a total waste in terms of money, and neither translated into better attendance figures.

In other words, the Hunts are probably growing tired of false promises from Hitchcock and are now taking this step as they figure those sellouts won’t come because of a coach like Hitchcock was previously thinking. And to be fair, only a few coaches in the world would translate into more tickets sold for a MLS club and none of those coaches would even want to coach in this league.

Carrick even talked about how the Hunts went about doing this hire:

Our sources indicate that while Hitchcock has been conducting his coaching search this week, the Hunts informed their GM they were talking to their own candidate. Yet talks with Hyndman apparently did not progress enough to tell Hitchcock to cease interviewing coaching candidates, as such various names and candidates have been emerging in local media. Hitchcock is under immense pressure from HSG to sell tickets and was on a short leash with the Hunts this season to begin with, now it appears the Hunts have chosen to move away from the GM’s path and take a direction of their own choosing.

My take on the hire is still this, while I think Hyndman is a great coach on the college level, I still have my doubts about him on a professional level. I know he was a favorite of the owner group but the guy has never won a national title with SMU during his long run with the Dallas-based program.

Plus the hiring of him for two positions is very interesting. I thought the technical director part was smart as he does know the college talent very well and would be able to scout for the club better than Hitchcock. But for handling both positions, for a coach with no professional coaching experience, I find shocking.

I’m hoping though that this duel position thing is only temporary, meaning he takes on the role as the technical director and then finds a head coach for the team on his own terms. Think of what Mo Johnston did in Toronto, that’s kind of the direction I hope this hiring takes shape. It would make more sense in the long run with Hitchcock’s days numbered if he were to do that sort of thing.

There are two coaches who have succeeded in making the direct transition from college head coach to MLS head coach are Bruce Arena (with D.C. United) and Sigi Schmid (with the Los Angeles Galaxy). But let’s remember at the time those two came into the league, it was practically brand new. Fast forward to today and that isn’t quite the case. Also, both Arena and Schmid actually won national championships on the college level.

What do you all make of it? This hiring could be either a total success or a total disaster. But more importantly, just how much longer does Hitchcock have with the club?

When Hitchcock was hired by the Hunts (FCD owners) he promised a number of sellouts in the first couple years of Pizza Hut Park. Since that time, the club has only seen a couple regular season games with the stadium nearly full. Those were Beckham games or MLS Cups. Not the number he had originally told the Hunts he would bring in.

So Hitchcock basically is out to save his job (he is in the final year of his contract) and thus Steve Morrow was left out of the mix because he probably had to tell the Hunts he couldn’t sell tickets when the coaching doesn’t translate in to success on the field. He threw out the excuse that the team was headed in the wrong direction, which most disagree with since it is such a young club.

A youth movement isn’t a wrong direction, its just a slower way forward.

But the firing of Morrow is yesterday’s news and the candidate search is on-going. The shortlist of names has apparently been cut down to three names according to Diego Aparicio of Al Dia in Dallas.

The big talk in Aparicio’s post was about the possibilities of former Mexican National team coach Hugo Sanchez as the next FC Dallas coach. Some like the idea, while others question if it is the right fit.

No word on those three names but Buzz Carrick is wondering if Eric Wynalda is one of those candidates.

So the mouth that is Eric Wynalda was in town today.  We don’t know whether he was interviewing for the coaching job today or not, but he did meet with a local club later in the day and confirmed he at least spoke to FCD.  We’ll continue to try and confirm if he is candidate for the job.

Most of the people who commented on the news basically said the same thing, “hell no.”

With names like Wynalda and Sanchez floating out there in the media it is apparent that Hitchcock is trying to find a big name to not only fill some seats at Pizza Hut Park but to ultimately save his butt. With the last two home games in Dallas getting gates in the 8,000 after the LA Galaxy sellout, Hitchcock will have to act fast if he hopes to start seeing the normal numbers in the 14,000 range and better yet those sellout figures that he was promising.

Honestly, the shortlist is probably Sanchez (if all possible), Oscar Pareja, and the owner favorite SMU coach Schellas Hyndman.

But then again, with a guy running the show in Dallas like Hitchcock its really hard to tell at this point what will happen. If he wants to sell out the stadium for each game, he has to bring in a big name to coach a bunch of young guys. I just doubt he will be able to land a guy like Sanchez though. This is a job that really has little security with him in place as GM. Plus the possible hiring of a Technical Director still looms.