Say it ain't so, Joe

[bosrs1]

This is why I hate people.

There's something completely -ed up about football. Anyone still disagree with that statement?

Not football, just college football at select schools where people have lost touch with reality like cult members. Penn State would qualify as one of these locations based on the continuing amounts of crap that keeps getting spit out by their fans.

Yeah, about that...

[pictures]

Seriously though, I disagree. I think it's all football. Cover high school football for a year or two and you'll agree. Players are taught from day one that life begins and ends with their coach. It's weird. I'm not saying all players buy into it, but enough of them do.

There's something completely -ed up about football. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining. That doesn't mean it's not fun to watch. All I'm saying is that football is a game you want to view from a distance.

I agree that football in and of itself makes people batty, but the cultishness is worst with college fans. I mean, shirtless Packers fans with polyurethane cheese wedges on their heads are generally harmless. Unsightly, perhaps, but harmless. The people I don't want to run afoul of are the ones who not only think they and the team are part of some institution which rises and falls with the fortune of athletics, but are also unafraid to act like animals because such youthful indiscretions are a rite of passage en route to a successful life by way of having belonged to said institution.

Want to see how that cultish nature is distributed in our country. Check out this EPSN poll that's been up for a few weeks now. There are a few outliers, but it's nearly what I'd expect for a distribution when asked about how Paterno's legacy will be viewed in the future.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?sportIndex=sportsnation&pollId=142986

[njmeadowlanders]

*-It is odd that in Anglo-America the term "Coach" is given to anybody with little proof that s/he did earn that title. People earn the terms, "Doctor/Dentist (medical)", "Professor (PhD/Ed)", Nurse, Legal (JD), council people are elected, yet for decades before there was a degree we will openly give a near irrevocable title of "Coach" to anybody.

It's an occupation. You don't have to earn "janitor," either. What's your point?

I've wondered this as well, and think it's ridiculous. You earn "Dr.", so you should be called "Dr. Smith". Why are coaches referred to as "Coach Smith"? Is "Coach" a noble title? It's downright silly to annoint them with this title as if they're some high-born lord. It's just Joe. Or Mr. Smith. It's part of why the role of coaches is so overblown in our society. Or at least a tiny bit.

Well what about "Principal Smith" or something like that in a school? All it is is a job title.

No, it's not like you're a cop where you've earned "OFFICER" or anything like that, but it probably harkens back to whenever when it was meant to show there was some sort of hierarchy. Just a hypothesis, it could've come from, IDK, Princeton or Harvard or whatever in the late 1800's when all players were referred to as "Mr. _____" and you'd use the term "coach" instead of Mr. to distinguish him from the rest of the team, the one in charge? From there it just became one of those things for no real reason other than that's how it goes?

[infrared41]

I've wondered this as well, and think it's ridiculous. You earn "Dr.", so you should be called "Dr. Smith". Why are coaches referred to as "Coach Smith"? Is "Coach" a noble title? It's downright silly to annoint them with this title as if they're some high-born lord. It's just Joe. Or Mr. Smith. It's part of why the role of coaches is so overblown in our society. Or at least a tiny bit.

To paraphrase a line from the movie Parenthood: You have to earn the title of Doctor or Professor or Judge, but any butt-reaming ass-hole can be called Coach.

I've always believed it takes a special kind of idiot to be a football coach.

[IceCap]

I've wondered this as well, and think it's ridiculous. You earn "Dr.", so you should be called "Dr. Smith". Why are coaches referred to as "Coach Smith"? Is "Coach" a noble title? It's downright silly to annoint them with this title as if they're some high-born lord. It's just Joe. Or Mr. Smith. It's part of why the role of coaches is so overblown in our society. Or at least a tiny bit.

To paraphrase a line from the movie Parenthood: You have to earn the title of Doctor or Professor or Judge, but any butt-reaming ass-hole can be called Coach.

I've always believed it takes a special kind of idiot to be a football coach.

Tied into that (going back to last season's NFL thread with this one) is the notion that a good coach needs to follow a near 24 hour work schedule, that if you come in at 9 and leave by 5 you're somehow not "committed." Coaches who sleep in their offices and work insane hours to the detriment of their family and personal life are lauded as examples to be followed. Sure, doctors and lawyers have their sleepless nights from time to time, but for the most part people in these professions follow normal work schedules.

The idea that one can cure illness or master a complex legal system between 9-5 yet a football coach needs to shun the outside world for days on end to do his job correctly is seriously messed up.

[infrared41]

the notion that a good coach needs to follow a near 24 hour work schedule, that if you come in at 9 and leave by 5 you're somehow not "committed." Coaches who sleep in their offices and work insane hours to the detriment of their family and personal life are lauded as examples to be followed. Sure, doctors and lawyers have their sleepless nights from time to time, but for the most part people in these professions follow normal work schedules.

The idea that one can cure illness or master a complex legal system between 9-5 yet a football coach needs to shun the outside world for days on end to do his job correctly is seriously messed up.

Steve Spurrier seems to have made a nice little career for himself working normal hours. If memory serves, when he was hired by the Redskins, he was vilified for daring to question why it was necessary to work 20 hours a day as an NFL coach. Sure, there are those who would point to Spurrier's lack of success with the Redskins as proof that a coach needs to work 20 hours a day in the NFL. That's fine, but there are just as many college coaches who work insane hours and still go 3-9 while Spurrier leads a normal life and has a pretty successful coaching career. Not to mention, it's not like the Redskins were wildly successful before and after Spurrier.

My guess is that, years ago, some successful coach gave an interview where he said he worked 12 hours a day. So of course every other coach decided to work 13 hours a day. Then a bunch more decided to work 15 hours a day and here we are. All that in mind, here's my question; if you have millions invested in a team, do you really want the personnel who are running that team to operate on 15 hours of sleep a week...for 20 weeks?

I'll never be convinced that it takes 12 people 120 hours each (that's 1440 hours combined) to come up with a game plan for a football game. There's something completely -ed up about football. And it's coaches are particularly -ed up.

[Sport]

We've discussed this before and I think we all came to a pretty clear consensus that the Grudens of the world who get to work at 4 am and don't leave until 12 weren't doing it for anything more than the ability to brag about their hours and so they could say "LOOK HOW DEDICATED I AM!" I don't know a lot about the X's and O's of football, but there's no way you need that much preparation, especially late in the season when you have 8, 9, 10 plus weeks of film on yours and the other team.

I like football and I like college football, but things like this and how seriously people take it have caused it to fall out of being my favorite sport where it once was. It's a low #3.

[The_Admiral]

Down to #4 for me.

http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/81763-2011-nfl-season/page__st__1560

Here's where the whole "I work twenty-five hours a day!" discussion started, I think.

[infrared41]

Down to #4 for me.

http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/81763-2011-nfl-season/page__st__1560

Here's where the whole "I work twenty-five hours a day!" discussion started, I think.

How about that? I said pretty much the same thing in that thread that I said in this one. That's more of a surprise to me than one might think.

[Enio125]

This is why I hate people.

There's something completely -ed up about football. Anyone still disagree with that statement?

Not football, just college football at select schools where people have lost touch with reality like cult members. Penn State would qualify as one of these locations based on the continuing amounts of crap that keeps getting spit out by their fans.

Yeah, about that...

[pictures]

Seriously though, I disagree. I think it's all football. Cover high school football for a year or two and you'll agree. Players are taught from day one that life begins and ends with their coach. It's weird. I'm not saying all players buy into it, but enough of them do.

There's something completely -ed up about football. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining. That doesn't mean it's not fun to watch. All I'm saying is that football is a game you want to view from a distance.

I agree that football in and of itself makes people batty, but the cultishness is worst with college fans. I mean, shirtless Packers fans with polyurethane cheese wedges on their heads are generally harmless. Unsightly, perhaps, but harmless. The people I don't want to run afoul of are the ones who not only think they and the team are part of some institution which rises and falls with the fortune of athletics, but are also unafraid to act like animals because such youthful indiscretions are a rite of passage en route to a successful life by way of having belonged to said institution.

Want to see how that cultish nature is distributed in our country. Check out this EPSN poll that's been up for a few weeks now. There are a few outliers, but it's nearly what I'd expect for a distribution when asked about how Paterno's legacy will be viewed in the future.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?sportIndex=sportsnation&pollId=142986

I don't even understand how people can have mixed feelings about Paterno. WINNING FOOTBALL GAMES DOES NOT BALANCE OUT PROTECTING A CHILD MOLESTER!

[DEAD!]

Down to #4 for me.

http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/81763-2011-nfl-season/page__st__1560

Here's where the whole "I work twenty-five hours a day!" discussion started, I think.

How about that? I said pretty much the same thing in that thread that I said in this one. That's more of a surprise to me than one might think.

October 11, 2011 - 15:49

"I've always said that it takes a special kind of idiot to be a football coach."

August 1, 2012 - 15:17

"I've always believed it takes a special kind of idiot to be a football coach."

Yeah, pretty much

[WSU151]

Glad to see we have a lot of armchair coaches on this board. Pardon the critique, but you all really look absolutely idiotic for criticizing a profession when you have no clue as to what actually happens in the profession.

[rams80]

Glad to see we have a lot of armchair coaches on this board. Pardon the critique, but you all really look absolutely idiotic for criticizing a profession when you have no clue as to what actually happens in the profession.

You devote the vast, vast majority of your waking hours to analyzing the minutiae of your and your opponent's film and playbook, only to lose a critical game and get fired because your backup safety was checking out the cheerleaders on a go route. I think I just captured the profession in that sentence.

[WSU151]

Glad to see we have a lot of armchair coaches on this board. Pardon the critique, but you all really look absolutely idiotic for criticizing a profession when you have no clue as to what actually happens in the profession.

You devote the vast, vast majority of your waking hours to analyzing the minutiae of your and your opponent's film and playbook, only to lose a critical game and get fired because your backup safety was checking out the cheerleaders on a go route. I think I just captured the profession in that sentence.

What game was that by the way? Oh...it didn't happen and all hyperbole? Cool story, bro.

Please, tell me the finer points of being a librarian. Especially now that books, newspapers, magazines and microfiche are in high demand. Since I know nothing about what you do, I guess you study the Dewey Decimal System all day.

[rams80]

It was a metaphor. Ultimately a decent chunk of football games are won and lost on random-chance events that coaches have little control over despite their vaunted hours of preparation. This is especially true if you don't have significant talent differentials on the field. Unfortunately very few coaches nowadays seem to have figured out this diminishing marginal rate of return proposition.

And of course there's also the pragmatic aspect that sleep deprivation tends to cloud judgment.

[WSU151]

It was a metaphor. Ultimately a decent chunk of football games are won and lost on random-chance events that coaches have little control over despite their vaunted hours of preparation. This is especially true if you don't have significant talent differentials on the field. Unfortunately very few coaches nowadays seem to have figured out this diminishing marginal rate of return proposition.

And of course there's also the pragmatic aspect that sleep deprivation tends to cloud judgment.

That's a better answer than your first effort.

You have a decent point with NFL coaches, but at that level, every level of detail is required. Have you ever tried to watch NFL film and try to predict what your opposition's doing based on how they line up? Ever try to find opposing tendancies? It's not an easy science. Not to mention meeting with the owners on who to re-sign and contract negotiations, who will be on the practice squad, what players should they sign that are free agents, meeting with the press, charity functions, etc etc.

College coaches are busy recruiting, studying high school highlights, meeting with the athletics department and the director, meeting with the alumni, meeting with the press, meeting with the strength coach, meeting with the trainers, etc.

If football coaches felt like they could work less and get the same amount done, they would. That's just human nature.

[Sodboy13]

If football coaches felt like they could work less and get the same amount done, they would. That's just human nature.

This is where I think you're wrong. As an outsider, the nature of high-level football coaching, especially when tied in with the nature of collegiate recruiting, is part of a long-standing, decades-ingrained culture of bravado, machismo, chest-thumping, and shallow one-upsmanship. While the overall goal may be to do it better, it seems quite often that the method of obtaining "better" is simply by doing something "more". Gotta recruit more than the other coaches. Gotta do drills more than the other coaches. Gotta watch film more than the other coaches. Gotta hold filmed practices in 55-mph winds more than the other coaches. There's an approach to coaching that comes across like everything in life should be approached in the same fashion as reps at a weight machine.

The old adage of "work smart, not hard" is lost on a good number of this lot.

[Cujo]

Yeaa... Ummm... NO.

[infrared41]

Glad to see we have a lot of armchair coaches on this board. Pardon the critique, but you all really look absolutely idiotic for criticizing a profession when you have no clue as to what actually happens in the profession.

I've covered football from the NFL all the way down to high school for 20 years. I've talked with more coaches than anyone should ever have to. I have a pretty good idea of "what actually happens in the profession." But that's beside the point. Your statement is every bit as ridiculous as me telling you not to critique a TV show because you have no clue "what actually happens in the profession."

I'm quite certain that you know about as much about producing a TV show as you do about piloting an Apollo mission to the moon. My guess is you're still able to tell a good TV show from a bad one. That said, using your own logic, I suppose there's nothing wrong with me asking you not to look idiotic by commenting on any TV show until you've actually sat in a producer's chair. Right?

[CS85]

Support the PSU healing process by buying a nittany lions shirt! We can overcome these atrocities by stunning the critics and winning some football games, but we need your money (since the NCAA kind of took all of ours)!

---

I lost my first FB friend over a PSU argument the other day. It felt kind of great, actually.

[infrared41]

If football coaches felt like they could work less and get the same amount done, they would. That's just human nature.

So how do you explain Steve Spurrier? He's more successful than most college coaches yet he doesn't work 20 hours a day. Is he just special or something?