For those Sounders fans who want head coach Sigi Schmid fired, I have an urgent directive: Listen to Joni Mitchell.

It is my unshakeable belief that everyone—especially sports fans—should aurally ingest a monthly dose of “Big Yellow Taxi” for one simple lyric: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

It’s true, right? Our dumb brains make us fail to appreciate what we have and lust for what we don’t. This instinct has surely led to many useful innovations, but what is space travel compared to the misery caused by adultery, bankruptcy, and, most tragic, the ill-advised firing of sports coaches?

After last week’s playoff losses to Portland, #SigiOut was a trending topic on Seattle’s Twitter feeds. While I too feel the distress of a fifth consecutive playoff ouster, where will the Sounders find a head coach with a better resume than Schmid’s? Yes, a new coach might be better. But he also might be worse.

Exhibit A–Z: Rick Neuheisel. The Husky football team was 44-25-1 from 1993–1998 under head coach Jim Lambright; he’d taken them to four straight bowl games. But none of those was the Rose. New blood was needed! Up popped Neuheisel, a media-savvy former quarterback with a law degree who had qualities Lambright didn’t even pretend to: panache, youth, and gorgeous hair.

But as we found out, Neuheisel lacked two of Lambright’s strengths—loyalty and focus. Two years after Lambright’s ouster, his recruits won Neuheisel a Rose Bowl. Neuheisel, failing to heed Joni Mitchell’s advice, started looking for an NFL head coaching job, angering his bosses and leading to his firing. Two years after Neuheisel’s ouster, his recruits went 1-10. The damage Neuheisel’s tenure wrought was foundational; you might say he paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Husky football still hasn’t gotten back to where it was during the Lambright years—and possibly never will. (And Neuheisel, who might have built something great at UW, never got that NFL head coaching job. He’s now a commentator for the Pac-12 Network.)

I hear you, Sounders fans. We all expected more after getting Clint Dempsey. But remember that Los Angeles didn’t even make the playoffs their first two years with David Beckham. Incorporating the talents of a player like Dempsey may just take time—let’s give Schmid that chance before we send a big yellow taxi to take away the old man.

sportsball@seattleweekly.com