Coaching

Quite often you hear people say, "Coaches/managers get too much credit when the team wins and too much blame when their team loses."

While their job security is a little more iffy, than say - weather prognosticators - how to measure a manager or coach's success overall is difficult to define. Should a manager of the Pirates be measured by the same stick as whomever happens to be coaching the Yankees?

To be honest, I'm not sure which one of the two I'd rather be. If you lose (not 300 games in 3 years, mind you) with what is obviously not a good team, should you be fired? If you lose with the Yankee's talent (and overlook the teams injuries) are you a GM, within normal intelligence range, if you fire the guy?

Is there more longevity in being a coach in an NFL division that has lousy teams versus one who is coaching a team in a really strong division?

The Pirates got a manager from the Dodgers who spent a lot of time in the media's doghouse, was fired, and then went on to a fair amount of success with another team.

What makes a great coach/manager? The GM and/or the owner? The players? A little compassion from the media? The fans? The team's record? The number of times he, as the baseball manager, gets thrown out of a game each season? The ERA of his pitchers? The QB rating of his star?

Tough to tell. All could be factors? Or, none. If you were the Steelers head coach chances are you had a pretty long leash. You could have ended up coaching for Al Davis.

Traditionally, we base a coache/manager's success on the number of games their team wins. But, if it's a double-A team you've managed your team to the championship and been awarded Manager of the year, who knows?

Just thinking. What if Paterno does retire - maybe even before win # 400 - and the team gets a new guy who leads them through three straight losing season? Was Paterno a bad coach in 2010 having lost several great players to the NFL and even more to the injury list? Anybody remember his record in the years after the Penn State exec's wanted to fire him?

What if the Pirates hire that "fire and guts" type manager the media and the fan seems to be demanding and he falls on his face - losing 106 games? Was he a bad manager?

Again, this blogger asks? What is it that made the great coaches/managers great - let alone successful?

The answer is - "we don't know." Should they all be cut from the Phil Jackson mold? Vince Lombardi style ? Connie Mack longevity? Casey Stengel flexibility?

Is there any fan reading this blog who cannot recall Stengel asking of his new team, The New York Mets, "Does anybody here know how to play this game?"

And is there anybody who remembers Warren Spahn's comment about Stengel?:"I'm probably the only guy who worked for Stengel before and after he was a genius."

Simply put, it's extremely stupid to continue to try to make an absolutely objective argument about a coach when almost all of the criteria is subjective.

Still, we fans - and many in the media - are sure we know. Why the fans? Generally because we're stupid. Why the media? Because they have to come up with a broadcast, a column, a blog, etc on a regular basis and their livelihood is based upon the amount of controversy they can engender in their role as self-appointed soothsayer.

Due to my own screwed-up way of looking at things, I lean toward the psychological motivation techniques employed by several successful coaches.

Give me a Jackson, Lombardi, Leyland, Wooden, Madden or Fritz Perls.

Don't remember Perl's technique? Picture a DI on Parris Island.

As Pennsylvania sports coaches/managers continue to wind their way down their strange career path, it will be interesting to see who deserved to be fired, who didn't - and perhaps discovering why it didn't make a heckuva lot of difference to the teams success or failure.

I prefer to equate successful coaching with a concept know as "Mastery". It may be best illustrated with a quote from "William James: "Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second."

One of Mastery's strongest examples is Gestalt Psychiatrist Fritz Perls who said: " I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel the world must live up to mine."

Now, that's a guy I might have hired to coach or manage my team.