Cover 3 is a weekly feature column written by PewterReport.com’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat writer Trevor Sikkema published every Tuesday. The column, as its name suggests, comes in three phases: a statistical observation, an in-depth film breakdown, and a “this or that” segment where the writer asks the reader to chose between two options.

Sikkema’s Stat of the Week

This week Buccaneers head coach Dirk Koetter fired his defensive coordinator, his mentor, his friend, Mike Smith.

In his own words, it was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do.

I didn’t always want to be a journalist. I sort of fell into this career – partially out of my procrastination to decide what I wanted to do with my life, but don’t tell my mother that. There was a time long ago when writing and sports reporting weren’t even in eyesight of my horizon.

My father owns a pretty successful business back in my home town. It’s a business that he has built from the ground up, and one that has given him a life that he even tells me he never dreamed of in his younger years.

My dad moved to Florida in his early twenties after dropping out of college because, well, he didn’t like math. He knew he didn’t have the natural smarts or drive to do what he needed to do to get his degree, so instead of racking up a ton of university debt he knew wasn’t going to be worth it, he went the more spontaneous route.

After leaving school, my dad, along with a handful of his best friends, moved all the way from Michigan to Florida. Why? Who knows? Probably because they liked the idea of drinking beer on the beach every weekend. When they got down here they didn’t have much. They had some connections at a church in town that they attended (still attend to this day), and while at that church they ended up getting a job via a member of the congregation who owned a very small landscaping business. He also owned a spare garage, and as part of their employment, my dad and one of his friends ended up living in the owner’s garage while working for him.

The work was hard (obviously), but it gave them some purpose to be down there, and at least stall both of their parents from demanding they stop goofing off in Florida and move on with their lives. But, just as things were at the end of their rope with employment, payment, and just life overall, right when they were about to call it quits and move back, the owner offered the business to my dad and his friend to own and run themselves.

They said yes.

For the next 25 or so years, to this day, that is what my dad did – and does. He no longer runs the tractors and cleans the equipment on 12-hour days. Instead, with hard work, a great relationship with people, a good hiring process and a drive to provide the best life he can, first for himself, then for his family, my father and his partner built one heck of a successful business.

Working summers for my dad’s landscaping company is where I first learned the value of a dollar. My dad wasn’t about the whole weekly allowance life for a couple of chores around the house – I had to do those, too. If I wanted extra money through middle and high school, I was going to have to earn it. After many summers of working at the company, doing a variety of different jobs, I had a pretty good idea of what kind of work it took to rise up in the business; first out in the field, then maybe into an office some day.

When I got to college and it became time for me to get serious with a major and a path for a career, my dad opened up to me more about the business, as I had shown interest in potentially taking it over someday and keeping it in the family whenever he and his partner chose to retire. He shared stories and taught me about how you take labor and a job and turn it into a business, but one story always stood out to me.

When the company was still relatively new, it was my dad, his partner, a few of their family members, whether brothers or cousins, and a handful of their friends that made up their team. As their work ethic and work wisdom grew on how to do things both better and more efficiently, their contracts and income did, as well. My dad and his business partner still ran crews, but the different branches that go into landscaping, such as irrigation, pesticide, trimming and sheering, all of that stuff was delegated.

One of my dad’s best friends ran one of the other sections of the company for many years. They were good friends, too. My dad was even the best man at his wedding. I even remember going over to their house all the time to play with his son when I was a kid. He was a staple in my dad’s life.

As my dad told me more and more stories about what it would really be like to take over the business someday, he taught me about some of the tough decisions you have to make – some that you wish you never had to make.

My dad told me the story that, as the company grew, so did the responsibilities of everyone. Most were up to it, but some were not. One of my dad’s closest friends was one of them. Eventually, there was a breaking point, and the lack of ability to grow as the company grew became too much.

My father told the story of how he had to call his friend into his office one day and inform him that they had to move on from him. My dad told me it was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do in his business career.

My dad knew what it meant. He knew the conversation that would follow, the damage it would do, and the repercussions that it would have to a friendship that helped get him to the point he was in his career and in his life to that day. And he told me it was all of those things. It broke a road.

But my dad also told me that though it was a tough decision, it was the one that had to be made. He told me that the only way the company could grow to where it was on the day he told me that story was to make certain decisions back then. He told me that the life we have as a family, the way he was able to provide and bless us throughout my childhood, the way he was able to give a life to his kids that he never had growing up, that wouldn’t have been what it was if he didn’t make the decisions he had to make in business.

He told me that, as he began to grow the business shortly after his garage days, he knew that the life he was building wasn’t just about going paycheck to paycheck anymore, and that when he met my mom, and when they had me, and when they had my sister, every decision he made in business had to be what was best for the company – with us in mind.

He had to do what was best, even if it hurt.

This week Buccaneers head coach Dirk Koetter fired his defensive coordinator, his mentor, his friend, Mike Smith.

In his own words, it was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do.

He had to do what was best, even if it hurt.

We often forget the human side of the game. I try not to.

The right decision was made, but this is the other side few bother to remember or realize.