Get ready for another round of randomly pieced-together thoughts by the regular but untrained columnist today.

Coaching instability in Chicago. A press conference was held Monday to announce the sudden firing of Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg. Sure, there is sarcasm in that last sentence, but not as much as you might think. The Bulls have been on the outside-looking-in of “competitive” since Hoiberg took over. The roster has been a mess and the Bulls’ lack of success has not been all his fault.

When you look at the Chicago Blackhawks’ firing Joel Quenneville after only winning three Stanley Cups, Joe Maddon bringing a World Series winner to the North Side and not getting a contract extension, and the Bears canning John Fox last winter, the fact that “The Mayor” was still on the Bulls bench when they were 5-19 just didn’t sit right with anyone in the Windy City.

Now he’s gone … why don’t I feel better about the Bulls chances?

Notre Dame as an underdog. It bothers me greatly that the Irish went undefeated in the regular season and, when selection Sunday unfolded this past weekend, there were actual, credible journalist/analyst types who suggested that Notre Dame didn’t belong in the final four of football.

Their opinion is based on the premise that Notre Dame would be underdogs in head-to-head matchups with not only Alabama and Clemson, but the three other schools vying for what turned out to be the final spot in the semifinals ­– Georgia, Oklahoma and Ohio State.

What a bunch of garbage!

Look, Georgia is really good, but they lost twice this year and one of them was to LSU by a wide margin.

Oklahoma’s defense is too embarrassing to have them in national title contention.

And Ohio State? Really? Let me remind you: Purdue 49, Ohio State 20.

Notre Dame went to Virginia Tech at night and won. The Irish went to USC and won. They beat Michigan. They played a home game in Yankee Stadium against No. 12 Syracuse and won by more than 30. They also went to Evanston and beat a Northwestern team that had the ball in the third quarter with a chance to take the lead on the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship game, and beat Pittsburgh, who played in the ACC title game against Clemson.

Their resumé is solid.

Because they don’t have a lot of five-star so-and-so’s and don’t play in the SEC should not make them have to justify their place at the big boy table.

Clemson is better, but the Irish will show up.

Mental toughness matters. I hate to keep repeating myself, but mental toughness is a critical trait in all exceptional athletes.

You can have all of the physical abilities to shoot or throw or hit a ball or run really fast, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t have what it takes between the ears and between the ribs.

I will say it plainly. We parents and grandparents are collectively failing in training our young people to see things through and not give up. They have watched us quit our jobs, quit our marriages, quit our friendships and they have come to the logical conclusion that quitting is an option.

And they are OK with that.

I want to be known as someone who finishes what he starts. That doesn’t always mean I succeed in all of it, but I want to see it through to the end.

Now we are raising a generation of kids that flip on the turn signal and head down the off-ramp at the first sign of trouble. We will pay for that … soon.

Know who you really are. I was offered an opportunity to do something different career-wise last week, and I politely passed. I expressed that I was touched to be thought of for that position and honored to have been considered, but had I taken it I would not have been happy long-term, and neither would they have been.

I know me. I know who I am and what I am good at. I also know what I want … and that thing I was offered wasn’t it. It wasn’t me!

Oh, sure, I could have faked my way through it for a few months, but it would been an ultimate waste of time for everyone involved.

There is a danger in that thinking, I admit. How do you know what you can and can’t do, want to and don’t want to do, enjoy and not enjoy? What if I miss something spectacular?

I am 50, and I have a pretty good grasp of who I am, what my role is in the jobs I have, in my home and in God’s big-picture plan. Attempts to lure me off that path are mostly temptations now, not opportunities.

I trust that means I have the wisdom to know the difference.