There aren’t many athletes at any level — including youth sports — who have managed to escape the indignity of being dressed down in public by an angry coach. And as the stakes grow higher, the humiliation increases as larger venues and television cameras now capture the images of the enraged coach ripping into a player or the entire team. No one wants to be on the receiving end of these rants, yet somehow at the professional level, witnessing this drama actually gives some fans a sense of comfort if their favorite team’s coach or manager is the one doing the yelling.
But should it?
NORMALLY LAID-BACK BASEBALL MANAGER SHOWS FIRE, GETS TOSSED
So last week, first-year New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who once hit a pennant-clinching, walk-off home run against the rival Boston Red Sox, and whose team has the second-best win-loss record in baseball (and in their division, which is a huge part of the problem) in September but is still heavily-criticized by fans for his calm demeanor and unwillingness to call out lackluster or underperforming players publicly, actually won over some of those same fans — for at least 24 hours — by getting ejected from a game against the Detroit Tigers for arguing with the home plate umpire. This was the finger-pointing, in-your-face kind of stuff fans crave as evidence their coach/manager cares.
This could have been genuine anger from a normally calm skipper or, as the saying goes, maybe he was just “trying to fire up his team.”
Over time, many sports fans have concluded that the best way to wake up their slumping or bad team is for the manager or coach to “show some fire” as in throwing a tantrum, yelling at a player or the entire team, getting in the face of a referee or umpire (“Why didn’t the coach do something? Show some fire! He just sits there!” ) or issuing strongly-worded criticisms of his players (or reporters) during the post-game press conference.
THE ANGRY COACH GETS MORE AIR TIME
Successful coaches like Bob Knight, Bill Parcells, Gregg Popovich and Vince Lombardi could be seen publicly berating players, and perhaps this accounts for the assumption that it works for all coaches and would get a positive response from all players. Particularly in the cases of Knight and Parcells, after a mistake by one of their players the hot camera would be the one focused on the coach, as if anticipating an eruption once the player comes over to the sidelines.
Get ready for the bulging eyes and veins.
(“Why can’t we get (insert name of fiery manager, probably under contract) in here? He gets in people’s faces!”)
Drama.
Of course, football is a little different given the violent nature of the game. You almost have to work yourself and your players into a frenzy just for survival, although a seemingly tranquil Tony Dungy managed to direct the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl win in 2007 and had a successful coaching career in the National Football League.
IT CAN’T JUST HAPPEN, IT HAS TO HAPPEN ON TELEVISION
So now, if a basketball coach and his team are on the bad side of a 10-0 run and he doesn’t get in the face of one of his players on his way to the bench after calling a timeout or doesn’t flip over the scorer’s table, he’ll get the “soft” label.
Truth is, we know very little about this coach’s tendencies. Perhaps he chooses to rip his players privately instead of in public view or in press conferences as a matter of respect. But in the minds of many, that doesn’t count. These passionate encounters have to take place on television, or someone with a camera in the VIP section has to capture it somehow. We have to witness it. Otherwise, it never happened.
Let’s face it, much of what keeps us hooked on these games is the entertainment aspect; all players and many of the coaches are performers. We may have an idea but no real knowledge of who the most fiery coaches are. We only know which ones are most likely to perform when there are television cameras around.
So when a basketball team shows more intensity and focus after halftime, the announcer usually assumes the team “received a tongue-lashing” during the intermission. Perhaps they did, we just have no way of knowing unless the coach could be heard screaming through the closed locker room door. Maybe the coach rehashed some X’s and O’s while the players yelled at each other.
Who knows?
YOU STILL NEED THE RIGHT PLAYERS
As a coach, Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Brown was known for being tough on his players and notoriously demanding of his point guards. Just a couple of years after guiding an offensively-balanced, defensively-stubborn Detroit Pistons squad to an NBA title, Brown found himself in charge of a New York Knicks roster composed primarily of offensive-minded players who weren’t real interested in his defensive philosophies.
This mismatched pairing of coach and roster resulted in a 23-win season for the Knicks in 2005-2006 and turned Brown into a one-and-done coach who, by most accounts, was screaming the entire time. Ironically, some fans — enamored with the roster makeup — accused Brown of being too rough on the players.
A few years later, the same Knicks were led by the relatively mild-mannered Mike D’Antoni, who coached the team through some lean years and was later criticized and eventually run out of town for not emphasizing defense or adapting his offense to accommodate his star players after the team acquired some talent.
This is the same Mike D’Antoni whose Houston Rockets sported the NBA’s best regular-season win-loss record in 2017-18 and extended the eventual champion Golden State Warriors to a Game Seven of the Western Conference Finals.
GOTTA WATCH THOSE QUIET GUYS
Yet another Basketball Hall of Famer, K.C. Jones, was a picture of calmness on the sidelines as a coach and led the Celtics to NBA titles in 1984 and 1986, and advanced to the Finals before losing in 1985 and 1987 with the team winning 251 games and losing only 73 during those four regular seasons. Now those Celtics were also loaded with talent, and perhaps a screamer doesn’t get those same results. Lenny WIlkens successful coaching career included a championship as coach of the Seattle Supersonics. Others like Eric Spoelstra, who was won two titles as a coach, and Brad Stevens, who likely has at least one in his future, are not known as “in-your-face” coaches, at least publicly, but should their teams go on an extended losing streak, their alleged “lack of fire” will probably be cited as one of the reasons.
CONCLUSION
Regardless of style, the coach or manager has to know how to coach or manage (saying the wrong stuff louder isn’t more effective in any setting); the players have to know how to play or be receptive to learning. Some of the more aggressive coaches can get the best out of their players like Larry Brown did with the Pistons; others face a mutiny like Larry Brown did with the Knicks (the team appeared to stop playing at times). Some of the more publicly soft-spoken coaches — as far as we can see, for they could be terrors in practice for all we know — can get the players to run through a wall for them; others lose the respect of their players and eventually get tuned out.
And the correct mix of talented players is a must.
There’s no right or wrong here as long as the coach doesn’t “cross the line”, especially at the youth levels. Likewise, there’s no conclusive evidence that the coach who “gets in people’s faces” is the better choice for that reason only, especially if the talent levels of the rosters are comparable.
It just makes for better television.
