Screaming High School Football Coach

[infrared41]

Heard about this yesterday on the Howard Stern Show. My opinion is nothing good comes from an adult screaming at high school kids like this. Is it just me, or does anyone else find it troubling that there are so many coaches out there who do this. In my years of covering high school football, I have seen more than my fair share of this type of "coaching." I think it's ridiculous. I have to wonder about any adult that can get this worked up over a bunch of high school kids playing football. Then again, I've never played organized football. Maybe a coach screaming like a raving lunatic is just part of the game.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks about this. Play nice kids.

This language in this clip is NSFW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQk1K7Qc-Sg

[Jigga]

Heard about this yesterday on the Howard Stern Show. My opinion is nothing good comes from an adult screaming at high school kids like this. Is it just me, or does anyone else find it troubling that there are so many coaches out there who do this. In my years of covering high school football, I have seen more than my fair share of this type of "coaching." I think it's ridiculous. I have to wonder about any adult that can get this worked up over a bunch of high school kids playing football. Then again, I've never played organized football. Maybe a coach screaming like a raving lunatic is just part of the game.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks about this. Play nice kids.

This language in this clip is NSFW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQk1K7Qc-Sg

Yep.

[oaklandhusker]

If a coach screamed at me like that, I'd walk off. End of story. Despicable.

[DCDuck]

Language is NSFW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw7KijRfU-c

When the coach is famous, fans call it "intensity". When the coach isn't famous, it's called "verbal abuse". Funny how things work like that.

[FiddySicks]

I for one absolutely HATE coaches that act like that. Freaking out like a stark raving lunatic over something as truly trivial as a high school sport shows just how twisted most coaches perspectives are. I had coaches who acted like this, and I decided not to play football my senior year because of it. In the three years I played I ALWAYS had coaches like that, and I won a total of 3 games in three years. Not three games a year, I mean a game a season. It was truly awful. As someone who has coached football on many different levels, I can tell you that there is a really fine line between motivating and just crazy. Sure, it's fine to yell to your players when you're trying to use your intensity to motivate them, but to break a 14 year old down like he's in freaking boot camp is ridiculous. It does no good, ever. No matter the situation. I've seen coaches take both roads and the outcomes are astonishingly different. I'll give the best example I can:

High School Football: Coaches yelled like maniacs all the time and used some of the most awful slurs to try and "build up" their top players. We won 3 games in 3 years, lost by 50+ MANY times, and by the time I was a senior they were completely unable to field a freshman and JV team because they had to bump them all up too varsity because so many players got fed up with the coach's s**t and quit. And after hearing the stories of how bad the coaches were, nobody who hadn't played wanted to come out either. Somehow, the coaches I had are STILL there. They've won maybe 5 games since I've left, and I graduated in 2006.

College Rugby: I was on the inaugural Rugby team for one of the colleges I went to back in 2008. Our coach was a former English Rugby player who only raised his voice when his players threw dirty hits or he spilled his tea. He told us from day one that we were adults, and so was he. Him screaming at us while we stared back blankly would only hurt his chances at gaining our respect. He said that when we f****d up, we'd know it and that by getting wrecked on the field was the only way to really motivate us to get better. We got absolutely KILLED in our first ever game against a really good team, and not once before, during, or after did the coach use any type of negativity towards us, and by as soon as the next week we were hanging with teams who we shouldn't even have been on the field with. The next year, we were absolutely crushing our competition. I ended up hurting my neck in a car accident towards the end of the season and was devastated that could no longer play. Such a contrast to how I felt about football.

Oh, by the way, that rugby team, three years after their first season, are ranked 5th in the nation now.

[Sport]

The best coach I ever had never raised his voice in anger. He treated all his players with respect and like the young men that we were and we all loved him. Disappointing him was more scary than getting yelled at. He related to us on a personal level and we were all apart of the same team. The coach above and many others I've seen act as though it's their team and the kids playing for them are just an irritation they have to deal with in order to get what they want.

It was my hockey coach. We were a new school and our first year (without seniors) we went 8-24. He stayed patient, worked with us on our development, and TAUGHT us the game. We were always the smartest, most disciplined team on the ice and the next year we went 24-8 and won the conference championship. The school hasn't won fewer than 20 games since that first year which was 2004-2005. He rarely has the most talented team. In fact, he's probably never had the most talented team in the conference, but every year he finishes first or second. If I ever coach a team I hope I'm half as good as he is.

I think that if you have to yell and scream to motivate through fear, then you're A. not very smart, B. not a very good coach, and C. you're perspective on high school sports is way out of whack.

[DCDuck]

My favorite coach in high school was our JV soccer coach who told us the first day of conditioning camp "When I get mad or upset, you're not going to hear me yell. You'll know when you mess up, and I expect you to take responsibility for it." And he was true to his word. He never yelled. Even after we lost to a team that was half as good as we were talent-wise, the next day at practice he just showed up and didn't say anything. The captains ran the practice that day and for the rest of the week, and we came out and executed much better the next game.

I think what I'm trying to say (and others) is that respect usually produces better results than fear.

[Dogeshak]

Intensity wins games boys and girls. I like it.

[Lights Out]

Intensity wins games boys and girls. I like it.

Intensity =/= screaming at the top of your lungs like a maniac.

[thespleenenator]

My high school baseball coach is one of the most calm coaches I've met... most of the time. I think there are two circumstances in which you can yell at your team. 1. When a player is being horribly disrespectful, or just being an ass in general. Coaches should respect players, players should respect coaches, and players should respect each other, the latter one being the most important. 2. If the team is losing because they're messing around, or they don't play hard. Any other time is just unnecessary and unneeded.

[Dogeshak]

That's true but I personally think it's better than the coach saying "you guys are playing well right now but we need to give it a little more". The coach needs to be intense, he's your coach supposed to make you better and get motivated. He's not supposed to be your best friend and act like it's okay to be losing. Like Herm Edwards said "you play to win the game! ... hello!"

[FiddySicks]

That's true but I personally think it's better than the coach saying "you guys are playing well right now but we need to give it a little more". The coach needs to be intense, he's your coach supposed to make you better and get motivated. He's not supposed to be your best friend and act like it's okay to be losing. Like Herm Edwards said "you play to win the game! ... hello!"

You don't have to shower your players with praise all the time, but it's equally dumb to shower your players with criticism as well. IMO, the best coaches I've had are the ones who basically treat players like their the dad, the players just turned 18, and daddy just booted them out into the real world. IMO, getting made to look like a fool on the field because your slacking is so much worse of a punishment then getting made to look like a fool on the sidelines because you're slacking. Add the possible benching to that and what worse could you possibly face as a player? Facing the realization that you're screwing up, and nobody is going to bail you out but you is a concept that I think is lost in high school football.

[Lights Out]

That's true but I personally think it's better than the coach saying "you guys are playing well right now but we need to give it a little more". The coach needs to be intense, he's your coach supposed to make you better and get motivated. He's not supposed to be your best friend and act like it's okay to be losing. Like Herm Edwards said "you play to win the game! ... hello!"

I agree that being the nice guy all the time will get you nowhere as a coach (see: Turner, Norv). But there's a better way to phrase criticism than flying off the handle and launching into a full screeching-2-year-old-in-Toys-R-Us bitchfit.

[Dogeshak]

It must just be me but if some coach is yelling at me I'm going to show them up by playing harder so I like it when people yell or try to insult me. It honestly gives me more determination and motivation to show them up. Call me crazy but that's just how I roll I guess.

[oaklandhusker]

It must just be me but if some coach is yelling at me I'm going to show them up by playing harder so I like it when people yell or try to insult me. It honestly gives me more determination and motivation to show them up. Call me crazy but that's just how I roll I guess.

I realize that's the reaction one should take in those circumstances, but I would hope that if that happened to me, I would be able to walk away and not keep playing and eventually get violent.

[CAB]

I have to agree with 100% with Bucfan, it's ridiculous. What's worse is when coaches try to blow off injuries as a sign of "weakness" or something like that. In junior high once I got tackled and my leg bent awkwardly. It hurt a lot in that moment and I sorta yelled/groaned as I was hit. Rather than seeing if I was okay, this coach immediately says something along the lines of "Awh, c'mon, I saw it. It wasn't that bad, now get up." That same coach is now head coach at my high school...one of the main reasons I decided not to play. You hardly ever see him give praise or any type of encouragement during a game. Kids will make a great defensive stop, then proceed to run past him on the sidelines and he won't say a word.

[Gothamite]

Language is NSFW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw7KijRfU-c

When the coach is famous, fans call it "intensity". When the coach isn't famous, it's called "verbal abuse". Funny how things work like that.

Lots of people thought, and still think, that he wasn't "intense" but instead was an insecure who had no right to be around students and who ought to have been disciplined for his juvenile behavior.

Me included.

[CityOfWalrus]

My junior hockey coach (mfoster knows him actually as he play-by-played my games) used to blow gaskets every game at us.

Once in San Diego we had a bench in the middle of the locker room with 3 players on it and he picked it up with the guys still sitting (eventually they moved off) and flipped it over in a tirade.

Our home rink, every game we had to replace our metal trash cans cause he literally crushed them in by the time the game was over.

He spoke 8 languages and called us the worst possible things he could think of.. In those 8 languages.

All while before and after every game made us pray and ask forgiveness for the language he used. The next game exactly the same things would happen. Did I mention he'd chew us out if we ever swore on the bench of the ice? Yeah he was such a treat.. We also won only 2 games that final season.

[charger77]

I have been in many locker rooms with that type of intensity out of a coach (w/o swearing). The hardest thing to do is hear a coach scream his head off and use words in place of swearing. I had a coach yell that he didn't give a rats patootie about something... I nearly pissed myself.

[infrared41]

Language is NSFW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw7KijRfU-c

When the coach is famous, fans call it "intensity". When the coach isn't famous, it's called "verbal abuse". Funny how things work like that.

Lots of people thought, and still think, that he wasn't "intense" but instead was an insecure who had no right to be around students and who ought to have been disciplined for his juvenile behavior.

Me included.

That's one way to look at it. Here's another...

Lots of people thought, and still think, that he wasn't "intense" but instead was a bat- crazy lunatic who had no right to be around students and who ought to have been institutionalized for his borderline psychotic behavior.

Me included.