Loyalty is a funny thing in sports.

As fans, we give it unconditionally and demand it in return. We’re shocked when coaches leave for greener pastures or players leave in free agency because, on some level, it’s a rejection of ourselves.

Maybe because of that, fans become jerks. Genuinely good people are booed because they’re not good enough at their job. Even the best fall victim to it. People say Peyton Manning “sucks” because he’s only won two Super Bowls, yet ignore the fact that most players never even get close. Often, fans run a player or coach out of town.

After covering press conferences for new coaches recently — Jay Hopson at Southern Miss and Fred McNair at Alcorn State — this hit home.

The introduction of a new coach is a happy time. Everybody smiles. If you’ve followed sports for any length of time, however, you know that the flip side often happens a few years later. A coach leaves, leading to somber faces and questions about why it didn’t work out. Few leave on their own terms.

Many never unpack their bags, and for good reason. In coaching, especially at the college and pro level, it’s important to cash in when the time is right and to be loyal to no one but yourself.

Coaches are hired to be fired. A lot of them are hobos with a whistle, wandering from town to town and job to job. Hopson, for example, has had a dozen jobs in 24 years in the profession — three of them at Southern Miss.

Hopson and USM, and McNair and Alcorn, seem like good fits but that’ll change if they go 5-7 each of the next two seasons. Then the same people who cheered at the introductory press conference will boo and yell for the team to fire the bums and get someone else.

If fortune smiles, USM and Alcorn keep winning, and a bigger school with a bigger paycheck comes calling it’d be hard not to cash out. One bad season can end a career, and coaches ignore that fact at their own peril.

None of this makes coaches, or fans, bad people. We all want to see our guys do well. We all want a little loyalty, to stay together for a long, long time.

That works both ways, though, and it’s easy to understand why the business of sports is a topsy-turvy one.

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Ernest Bowker is a sports writer. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com