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RSSSuccessful Coach and Athletic Director
Mike Check - February 2010
By Michael Podoll, Associate Publisher/Managing Editor,
Coach & Athletic Director
Being Old School In The New Age (Part 1)
I consider myself an old-school guy. I was born, raised and currently reside in Green Bay Packer territory, where tales of Vince Lombardi’s hard-nosed style are veritably preached in Sunday School classes. I have a fond appreciation for throwback coaches in all sports and the way today’s coaches such as Kirk Ferentz or Ben Howland stay true to fundamental tenets of hard-nosed, physical play while always adapting to their sport’s modern innovations. I deeply admire the Spartan-like discipline that college and high school wrestlers take on to train and make weight. And being a lover of all-things history, I can see how some of our greatest military leaders have achieved success through drastic discipline and harsh, brutal decisions, even when deemed widely unpopular.
The world of scholastic athletics finds itself at a strange crossroads in the modern age. In every sport there is more pressure to win games than ever before. This pressure comes from the school administration, boosters, alumni, parents and fans. Not only are coaches mandated to win, they must do it within the rules and run a clean program, while making sure that their student-athletes remain focused on their education, get good grades and behave in a manner that represents their school in a positive light. The reality that coaches at all levels face, however, is that the process of building, molding and training a successful young athlete is often an ugly and arduous task.
The news headlines are filled with stories about “old-school” behaviors in coaches that are getting them into trouble. Head football coach Mark Mangino was let go at Kansas after an investigation into mistreatment and verbal abuse toward players and school administrators. Mike Leach was fired as Texas Tech head football coach after locking an injured player in a dark, secluded room and forcing him to stand in place. South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt was terminated after allegedly striking a player at halftime of a game this past season. At the high school level, a Wiggins High School (Texas) wrestling coach was indefinitely suspended for failing to take action when a veteran assistant coach duct-taped an insubordinate player to a bench for the duration of the team’s practice.
Every case has two sides to the story and this column isn’t the vehicle to debate whether the terminations were right or wrong. The bigger picture is that more often than ever before, the culture-clash between athletic coaches and academic institutions are coming to a head.
Academic institutions are not only devoted to the primary mission of education, but they are also charged with instilling higher-level concepts into the consciousness of the nation’s youth — concepts such as social equality, philosophies of the greater good and our societal definitions of right and wrong. These are big-picture concepts with the end goal being to graduate an educated, well-rounded and morally sound individual into our society.
Sports on the other hand, instill a sense of personal discipline, a hard-work ethic, sacrificing the wants of the one for the good of the team and, most of all, a relentless spirit of competitiveness in which wins, losses, money, scholarships and jobs are all on the line.
Unfortunately, all too often, these ideologies collide and clash. Schools mandate that the coaches win games yet continue to instill all the positive traits of sports without crossing the line into the ugliness that is often needed to achieve these ends. After all, there is a reason why military boot camp is hard. A young person will undeniably reap long-term benefit from the lessons learned from discipline, self-sacrifice and hard work.
There is no doubt that Mangino, Leach and Leavitt are excellent football coaches. Yet in this day and age, a person must be cognizant of the current work-place culture that surrounds each and every one of us. They should have known better. You can’t put a kid in a closet. You can’t verbally berate a player by using quasi-racial overtones. You just can’t do it. Just as I know that I can’t scream at my fellow workplace associates or jokingly cuff a female co-worker on the bottom in the office. What was tolerated in 1950s isn’t acceptable in 2010. As much as we old-schoolers cling to the glorified past — Junction Boys-type of abuse isn’t tolerated in 2010 society.
Do schools want it both ways? You betcha. Coaches must represent their school with dignity, class and honor. Yet, if a coach doesn’t win, he or she will be fired. The school administrators, alumni, fans and media demand success — but do they understand the price of success?
Send Us Your Thoughts:
So what’s the happy medium here? How can a coach win games, motivate, discipline student-athletes and create a sense of personal accountability without crossing the lines of acceptable societal behavior in 2010? This is where I defer to Coach & Athletic Director’s readership.
E-mail me your thoughts, ideas, tactics and strategies and we’ll all try to learn from the debate: mpodoll@lesspub.com
