Clive Rush is a good call - he was crazy. The "Black Power" defense was my favorite example. Rod Rust didn't do very well, and Dick MacPherson, though the nicest man ever, was not a success.

In baseball, Mike Higgins was awful (no "Black Power" defense here - some power, but no blacks, no defense). (it's apparently not true, however, that Don Buddin was his illegitimate son, as widely rumored.) I'm no fan of Don Zimmer - the Sox should have won by 10 games in '78 even with the injuries (being able to deal with injuries is the test of a manager, and Zim failed spectacularly.) Then there are the non-managers - Emil Fuchs for the Braves, and the Sox/Americans situation in 1907 - think it's a bad sign when your manager commits suicide during spring training?

I'd be inclined to give M.L. a pass - everyone knew he was taking one for the team, and some suggested that he was supposed to lose. Pitino's another crazy man. I think he tried to get Scottie Pippen that first year because he'd chosen to win and all the other NBA coaches were (he thought) morons, but he was one veteran away.

Hockey - well, that guy before Julien didn't achieve much.

In the college ranks, how about Ronn Tomassoni (I may have misspelled this, but as far as I'm concerned he misspelled both of his names), who utterly destroyed the Harvard hockey program?

Two Boston-connected guys, Frank Leahy and Chuck Fairbanks, were in effect blackballed from college coaching because, despite .800+ records, they were considered too pathologically competitive to be football coaches. Or something.