Coaches – – Past, Present And Future

The University of Wisconsin – Green Bay has hired Doug Gottlieb to be their new head basketball coach.  Gottlieb was an excellent point guard in college at Oklahoma St. but has no head coaching experience at this level of the game.  That is not what makes this story interesting; what makes it interesting is that Doug Gottlieb hosts a syndicated daily sports talk radio on show on FOX Sports Radio and he intends to continue that program in addition to doing the coaching job.

I have never hosted a sports radio program, nor have I ever tried to coach a Division 1 college basketball team; so, this observation is purely speculative:

• Each one of those jobs seems like a full-time job to me.

Gottlieb is confident he can do both jobs at the same time, yet seemed to acknowledge that scheduling and focus could be a challenge:

“In terms of the mental gymnastics of doing it, I know I can do it.  I just have to prove I can do it.”

Coaching basketball is something Gottlieb has done outside the college ranks.  He was the head coach of two US teams that played in the Maccabiah Games and won the Gold Medals there.  It will be interesting to see how all of this works out.  Gottlieb is taking over a team that went 18-14 last year; so, he is not inheriting a program that needs a total tear-down/rebuild.

Switching gears but staying on the subject of basketball coaches …  The Lakers continue their search for a new head coach after the team let Darvin Ham go once the Lakers were eliminated from this year’s playoffs.  Whoever gets the job will be the seventh head coach of the Lakers since Phil Jackson left town in 2011; it is not a job that has offered a lot of longevity/stability lately.

The team brought in Mike Krzyzewski as a consultant to help with the search.  Obviously, Coach K brings plenty of basketball wisdom to the position but in the end the choice of the new coach in LA will hinge on the acquiescence – if not the specific approval – of LeBron James.  Moreover, James’ agreement with the coaching choice might hinge on the Lakers willingness and their ability to acquire the services of his son, Bronny James.

One of the rumored candidates for the Lakers’ job – – allegedly someone LeBron James might approve of – – is JJ Redick.  The fact that Redick played for Coach K at Duke has led to speculations/rumors that in turn have generated amazing contrivances in the minds of speculation specialists.  Redick had a long career in the NBA spanning 15 seasons and 6 teams but like Doug Gottlieb above, he has no head coaching experience at anything like the NBA level.  Then again, neither did Steve Kerr…

Moving on …  Yesterday, I recounted some of the accomplishments of Ted Williams as a young baseball player in the 1940s.  Around mid-day, I went to check my emails and saw one from the “reader in Houston”.  Those missives area always interesting and here is his addendum to my comments about Ted Williams yesterday:

“Baseball Reference in its bio section for deceased players lists where they are buried, such as Buried: Fallbrook Masonic Cemetery, Fallbrook CA for Duke Snider.

“For Ted, it says: Buried: Frozen.”

Count that as something new that you learned today; I have it chalked up for yesterday.

One last item for today …  Peyton Manning recently appeared on Pat McAfee’s show and revealed that Bill Belichick would be on every one of the ManningCasts next season.  Here is how Peyton dropped that news:

“I said, ‘Bill, we want you to come on. Look, we’d love to go behind the ropes on the defensive side as to kind of what the Eagles are going to have to do to stop Patrick Mahomes, right? And if you ever run out of things to say, just make fun of Eli, right? That’s always sort of a time-filler, and Bill doesn’t like Eli.  We all know that – two Super Bowls – so it’s just a match made in heaven.”

I think this is good news for fans who tune into the alternate broadcasts of MNF games.  Notwithstanding his reputation as a monosyllabic interviewee, Bill Belichick is smart and he can be funny; in addition, he is a defensive minded observer of the game who can complement the commentary of the two main characters who were both QBs and see the game from the offensive side of the game.

In addition to appearing on those ManningCasts, Belichick is slated to do a weekly appearance on Pat McAfee’s program.  I will probably miss those appearances and his commentary there because I have basically already tired of McAfee and his histrionics.

Finally, since today has involved comments about coaches past, present and future, let me close with a couple of observations by coaches:

“Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired.”  [Lou Holtz]

And …

“Really, coaching is simplicity. It’s getting players to play better than they think that they can.”  [Tom Landry]

And …

“When I have the urge to get back to coaching, I lie down and wait until it passes.”  [Hank Stram]

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………