While on the subject of Larry Brown's traveling circus I thought any interesting topic de jure is those coaches that we hate. There's always a handful coaches preening and posturing like prima donnas (Butch Davis comes to mind) and theres always those Zombified coaches too stupid or too mean to come up with any sort of play outside of "must eat brains". That said I'm restricting my list to active coaches (otherwise every coach the SEC ever had in any sport between 1900 and 1992 would be on the list )
1. Bobby Bowden: Bobby is a throwback to an older era of SEC play where a white guy with a funny accent ran everything. Sure he can make public comments like "he only cares about a player's Christian soul" but who here doubts that a player would be the first to be thrown under the bus if it helped him and nepotistic coaching staff (I think he has 3 sons, 2 nephews and a former babysitter in various assistant coach positions). Although I do have to give him props for having his own police force (and by his own policy force I mean any Tallahassee policy chief has to run arrests of his players through him).
2) Brian Billick - If Billick's ego was any more massive I don't think HBO could fit the cameras into the same room that Billick occupies. A self proclaimed offensive genius, Baltimore has yet to complete a foward pass in the pass 5 years. Seriously Billick has gotten by via Marvin Lewis and his schemes (hmm no Lewis no serious playoff threat) and the drafting done by Ozzie Newsome. Thats it. Billick couldn't coach his way to a tie in tic-tac-toe.
3) Steve Spurrior - Former football coach from Florida. Strike One. Massive Ego. Strike Two. Inability to understand world around him. Strike Three. Oh Steve...I remember when you marched into Washington like Patton marching over the Rhine. I don't need to change my schemes the little Napoleon said. I don't need to work the crazy hours succesful coaches like Belichek or Parcells work said the proclaimed Einstein of football. How'd that work out for you Steve? Well he's retreated back to the safety and security of SEC football. One of my games of the year is South Carolina and Florida and seeing if Gator fans launch flaming poop at the "not good enough for pro football" coach.
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6 comments:
I'm sorry but any discussion of detestable coaches HAS to include the following:
Larry Bowa, Mike Keenan, Jimmy Johnson, Phil Jackson, Coach K and Bobby Valentine.
In the case of Phil Jackson, Coach K and Jimmy Johnson, I'll say that all three are excellent coaches who know their craft and have successful track records befitting their arrogance. However, it is precisely their arrogance that makes them detestable.
Larry Bowa and Mike Keenan are easy to hate because they're such screamers. No one wants to play for (or watch) a coacht that thinks he's better than his players.
Bobby Valentine is easy to hate too. Not only is he arrogant like the list of guys in Group A but he's completely incapable of getting along with his players like the guys in Group B. That's just a deadly combination.
My hate also extends to Don Nelson. Although I think most New Yorkers hate his guts, I don't think anyone else in the country or on this blog hate him. He's a fat, arrogant idiot who is too in love with his "innovative" ideas. He rolled the dice with Dirk and got lucky but his track record from 1992-present outside of that one lucky strike has been completely putrid. I f*cking hate that fat, bloated idiot.
Admitedly I'm biased as a UNC fan but I agree on Coach K. I tend to look unfavorably on coaches like Coach K or Jackson that seem to go out of their way to get contracts or publish books that extoll their greatness. Give me Bill Cowher who simply goes out, does old school practices and tells it like it is. No need to demand attention to ones greatness
The man is arrogant, plain and simple. I didn't say that he's not a great coach (he is) and I didn't say that he didn't deserve his rightful place in the sun. I said that his detestability is BECAUSE of his arrogance. He's smug and insufferable with his mock-sincerity. There is no question that he runs a good program and that many of his players have been enriched by the experience.
The question isn't if he's earned the arrogance, the question is if the masses generally dislike him because he's such a cocky bastard. The answer is yes, the masses dislike him. I think a lot of Duke-haters out there are Duke haters because of Coach K. Those AMEX commercials are making it worse.
I think it's at least partially about Coach K. But you're right, everyone loves to hate a winner.
Maybe I see things on Coach K differently because he's a native Chicagoan - but I have never, not here or during my time in St. Louis, heard of the masses hating him. UNC fans hate him, for obvious reasons. But my sense is that Coach K is near-universally respected for his coaching ability and his humanity. Mo, why you call it "mock-sincerity" is beyond me; I'm not aware of anything major that he's done that would counter a lot of the good things he's said done.
I do want to add one name to the list, the man who is probably the most hated coach among Chicagoans: Jeff Van Gundy. He's a whiny little weasel, he gave a very strong wink-and-a-nod to the Knicks' mid- and late-90s thuggery, and he looks like a walking turd. I cannot stand watching him squirm and moan and complain like the little bitch he is.
Maybe it's not as prevalent in Chicago but here on the east coast you either love Duke or you hate them and, by extension, Coach K. The ACC gets a lot more pub here than it does in Big 10 country.
Insofar as your opinion of JVG, he's my favorite coach of all time, regardless of sport. It's true, he was Pat Riley's assistant during the years when the Knicks used intimidation tactics and physical play, but it's very hard to pin the "blame" for such tactics on an assistant coach. After he took the reins in 1996, the Knicks were a different team and didn't have as much of the physical persona as they did under Riles. I can see why a Chicagoan would hate JVG, though. He was the only person in the whole NBA to have the balls to call out MJ in public. Obviously it cost him and the Knicks several more bad beatings at the hands of the Bulls but there's no question that JVG is a class act and a stand-up guy.
What we've learned today is that hate is an irrational and subjective emotion. I love MJ even if I shouldn't as a Knicks fan but I hate Bill Parcells, even though he coached us to two Super Bowls. Who can explain hate?
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