Are most successful coaches "mean?"
 

I'm having a hard time thinking of many great coaches that don't yell at their players. Belichick doesn't seem like a yeller. Nor does Phil Jackson. But looking at other successful coaches, it seems that being a hard-ass and yelling seems to do more than being a nice guy. Bill Self yells at his players a LOT. So did Mangino.

Tom Coughlin is a hard-ass. Jim Harbaugh. Bill Cowher. Marty. Nick Saban (college only, it seems). Bobby Knight.

It seems like it takes a special kind of coach to motivate his players without yelling at them to really get their attention. I'm not saying that yelling is indicative of success (lol Haley), just that, in general, it seems like more coaches have more success with being mean than they do with taking the Romeo approach.

I'm also certain that I'm leaving out a ton of coaches that are successful and DON'T yell. So, I'm open to being wrong about this, but it just struck me the other night that I can think of more successful "mean" coaches than successful "nice" coaches.

It also seems as though players today are less comfortable being yelled at than we were back in my day. And I'm only 31, so it's not like I'm THAT old. But I never had a problem with a coach yelling at me to either motivate me or point out mistakes I made on the field. I feel like it made me better as a player.

Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, Tom Landry, Tom Osborne, etc. there are many coaches that can get after a player in practice from time to time but really don't rant and rave.

There is also a difference between going nuts screaming and raising your voice to get your point across.

Marty was not a prick.

He knew what buttons to push for each individual player.

I think it has a lot to do with having a competitive nature and getting the point across to the players. They can't do it themselves on the battle field so they have to really push hard what they teach and sometimes that comes across as yelling. I don't think they try to be mean but come across that way especially when the players don't listen or do something wrong, then it gets worse. They play good less yelling play lousy more yelling.

Nope.

Not everyone responds to derision. Some people respond much better to encouragement. Dumb people see that as coddling, but that's how some people are. Most people actually.

Most coaches, at some point, will yell. That doesn't make them like Bobby Knight or Bill Parcells. Those guys are just bullies. There's a huge difference. Bullying players used to work because these coaches had so much power over them... not so much the case anymore. Guys on the roster bubble probably take the yelling just like old school players... because they have no choice.

Good coaches tend to share two traits in their personality that I notice. 1. They strongly value discipline and accountability. Even if coaches don't disparage players, they can do this. Very easily. When a player says about a coach "He treats us like Men"... that means he does NOT hold them accountable and expects them to hold themselves accountable. This doesn't work.

2. They have a big ego. I've never seen a good coach who didn't have one. Maybe Joe Gibbs. Most good coaches probably build shrines to themselves.

This topic surfaces on occasion and it's not unusual for Belichick's name to come up in this context. But it always brings to my mind the story Tony Gonzalez told about the year when Belichick coached him in the Pro-Bowl.

According to Gonzalez, Belichick was extremely demanding. In fact, he never caught Gonzalez doing anything right all week ... he always found something to criticize. If it wasn't his cuts, it was his blocking. If it wasn't his blocking, it was his start off the line. That sort of thing.

Anyhow, due to the fact that Belichick's standards were, apparently, impossible for Gonzalez to meet, he tried even harder at practice to get it right. Then, on a particular play in the game, Gonzalez ran his route, caught the ball properly, and gained some YAC and a first down. Afterwards, he rotated out and came to the sideline fully expecting Belichick to either criticize him again or ignore him completely. Instead, as Gonzalez walked by the coach, Belichick (without even looking at him) said, "Good catch, 88."

Gonzalez said that one, small compliment shocked and surprised him. And, after all the problems, it made him want to bust his ass on the next series even more. And that's in the Pro-Bowl where nobody really cares ... supposedly.

Obviously, the moral of the story is that (even though many coaches do) you don't have to constantly scream and yell in order to be a hard-ass. And if you're good at it, you can motivate players beyond their own expectations. Of course, even though Belichick has had his share of player, coaching, and official confrontations as well as the occasional melt-down, he's generally perceived as stoic ... almost aloof ... but he isn't a "softie" by any means, either. To me, he sounds like a guy who has figured out how to identify a player's personal button locations and knows when and how to push them.

FAX

A great example of both of the traits I listed.

Bill is a disciplinarian. He's not a guy who runs around insulting his players.

Joe Montana said that Bill Walsh would always criticize his passes in practice if they didn't hit the WR in stride right in the numbers on a short route. Walsh would tell Joe "You need to get that ball 3 inches more in front of him!" No pass was good enough.

Walsh's philosophy is like Belichick's and echos my favorite quote from Vince Lombardi.

“Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.”

I think if you are going to yell and go off, you have to have success. Otherwise, it will get old quick. I think it also helps if you have actually played the game. I think that is very important if you are going to take that approach.

Did Vince Lombardi have a "Play good football" sign in the locker room too? Just asking.

All of the men described in this thread would never come here and bow before Scot Pioli's Patriot way, ego ass, attitude.

He definately never had one like this. Todd Haley? For real? ROFL

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That "Big Brother" sign reveals a lot about what condition the locker room has been in for a long time.

Belichick isn't a yeller, but he's very demanding. The anecdote about Tony G catches it perfectly. Brady makes it perfectly clear that Belichick still criticizes him -- alot! But he welcomes it because nobody is perfect and they're always trying to get better. If you can't take coaching, you can't get better.

You can also see that Belichick sticks up for his players. No loss is ever on one guy, it's always about the team. The offense can roll and the defense suck, or vice versa, and it's all about how the TEAM didn't play well enough to win etc.

Nick Saban, just plain evil

Nick - Little Nicky
Saban - Satan
Born on Halloween.

Keep in mind, the giants locker room was near mutiny in Coughlin's first year. They were trying to run him out of town. The asshole act only works in the pros when you win and win quickly.

Chuck Noll was fair.

Nobody is fair. Jimmy Johnson said that he treated you in relation to your effort and ability. If you put forth the effort and had the ability he let it go. He gave an example of how he caught an ST player sleeping in a meeting and cut him. He said that if it was Troy Aikman he would have walked up behind him and said, "Troy, you need to wake up."

Hard-nosed with a bit of unpredictability typically equals success in coaching. Especially when your coaching multi-millionaires.
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Earth-shattering Jimmy.
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Yelling can only deliver results when it comes sporadically, not as SOP. People who yell 99% of the time to try and motivate or prove they are the boss, lose respect quickly. There are always exceptions to the rule like Bobby Knight or Woody Hayes but that was more about the legacy of the school and the program.

Any boss in my life who tried ruling by being a tyrant had the shortest and least successful career.

As people age, they respond less and less to people yelling.

Are most mean coaches "successful?"

My sampling size is small, but if I'm judging on Bobby Petrino (mean) vs. John L. Smith (nice), I will take the asshole every day.

I would say most successful coaches aren't "nice" and soft spoken.

Does he ever accept responsibility? Even just in small statements like, "I need to coach better."

If not, then we know where Matt Cassel gets his bullshit from

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Any questions?

Well it has to do with the nature of the sport. For instance, I'm positive i'd make a good coach but I couldn't deal with seeing guys i invested effort and time into getting hurt and ruining their bodies/careers. It's the nature of the beast and you have to be somewhat cold to watch a guy you drafted and studied since HS go down with a torn ACL and call a play right after

Being a disciplinarian does not make a coach mean.
Disciplinarians do get more out of the team than a players coach does. Sometimes being a disciplinarian means you yell. Sometimes to get over all the noise people have to yell to be able to hear each other too. A coach that is a disciplinarian that rewards his players and of course they win will actually be more appreciated by his players in the long run.
To me it is like Dad=coach and players=children in a relationship.

Until the playoffs

Yeah, too bad it didn't mean shit

Come on, Dude. That's coaching ability, no personality.

And Petrino had his shit pushed in during his NFL stint.

Petrino got handed a shit sandwich in the NFL, but I agree that his skills probably don't translate to the NFL (he's similar to Saban). The mother****er is a genius at the college level, though, even if he's a completely ****ed up individual.

But my point remains:

When John L. Smith took over, the players were happy as hell. They were all super convinced they were going to be awesome. "We're like a big family." "We're having a great time!" "Everyone feels really positive."

They were all on Cloud Nine after the tyranny of Petrino (mother****er ran a tight ship that involved serious discipline for missed assignments, not doing enough film study, not making proper reads in the film room due to lack of study). John L. Smith was all touchy feely, and they were all feeling the love.

Then the reality of the season hit, and they got their shit pushed in by the Sun Belt. Awesome.

There's a difference between office life and the NFL life.

But what guys like Haley don't get enough credit for is, for as much as they yell, they're also really good about rewarding those who try hard.

Rex Ryan always felt artificial to me. And I never bought into Singletary's ridiculous shtick. Josh McDaniels looked like a guy who was trying to be tough. The best coaches know how to balance being a dick while also giving you credit when you did things right.

It's not about yelling. It's about holding guys accountable and demanding excellence. You also have to have some credibility to do that, so as a first time or young coach, you need to work hard to earn that trust and respect.

I was watching the "Football Life" show on Jimmy Johnson recently, and he said something that made sense. He said that as the head coach, when you walk into the building, you need to make sure that you are able to touch everyone in the organization, and let them know that you recognize them, and are watching them, and be able to motivate everyone from the QB to the backup guard to the guy breaking down film to put in that extra effort to reach excellence. He also said you treat everyone differently, and there is a lot of psychology involved.

That's why I think it is hard for a coach to come in and double as coordinator as well, because the coach needs to spend time motivating those around him to produce at a high level, and display that there are consequences when you aren't cutting it...

Dan Gable. Most successful coach in any sport. Total hard ass

Give me the hard ass. A hell of a lot more hard asses have won in this league than pussified "plaers coaches"

Lombardi was a total hard ass. He could be nice when he needed to, and treated his players well...but he was a yeller for sure.


-- gotta love the mix of Facenda and Lombardi!

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strict vs mean vs crazy vs ranting


i think all successful coaches are strict and most are mean-ish but i also think they know how to read players and adapt that to fit the players.


crazy and ranting tends to wear out and players stop listening.