"Time to blow whistle on pro coaches"

[Tammo29@xxxxxxx]

~~~~~Speaking of coaching~~~~~

Time to blow whistle on pro coaches

By STEVE SIMMONS

 

All you need to know about the numbing state of professional sport is that 
when it mattered most on Sunday, Ricky Manning was more impressive than was 
Peyton Manning. An unknown defensive back on another football field being the 
Manning of the day, the MVP who wasn't, just further indication that coaches are 
winning and the sports fan is losing and somewhere entertainment is being 
trampled on in the process. 

MICRO-MANAGING 
This is the brave and not-so-new landscape of professional sport, where games 
are over-analyzed, coaching has turned into micro-managing and the new heroes 
of football are not the quarterbacks or the runnings backs or the wide 
receivers. They are the offensive and defensive co-ordinators holding printouts and 
clipboards. 
Watch the television broadcasts and you can't miss this: Who got more 
closeups on Sunday, Jimmy Johnson, the Philadelphia Eagles defensive co-ordinator or 
Donovan McNabb, the star quarterback? 
And I wonder so many years later: When Joe Namath and Bart Starr and Len 
Dawson and Roger Staubach were winning Super Bowls, who happened to be the 
offensive co-ordinators? And why, having watched those games, does it seem so 
relevant now and so irrelevant then? 
This is not only about football, but a dimming sidelight of the fact there 
will be a Super Bowl game played next week between two teams hardly anyone on 
the planet cares to watch. 
This is a New Jersey Devils -Anaheim Mighty Ducks Stanley Cup final. This is 
the San Antonio Spurs and New Jersey Nets playing for the NBA championship. 
Exactly when in time was it determined you had to be dull to be successful? 
Not that long ago, in a conversation with Scotty Bowman, arguably the most 
successful coach in professional sporting history, I asked him about the 
stagnant state of hockey. After offering up a number of theories as to why, the last 
thing he said may have been most relevant for all sports. 
"To be honest," Bowman said, "the better the coaching has become the worse 
the game has become." 
And success has bred success. The Devils have won three Stanley Cups in nine 
years. 
The Maple Leafs, still trying to entertain, and be thankful for that, haven't 
won in 37 years. 
The Stanley Cup finalists of the past 10 years have included the Mighty Ducks 
and the Carolina Hurricanes and the Buffalo Sabres and the Washington 
Capitals and the Florida Panthers. 
If you can kill the clock, defend, make few mistakes, outwork your opponents 
and get the occasional break, you have a shot in almost any sport. 
Talent used to be the difference-maker. The better players won, the better 
teams won. 
Now, as Bill Belichick seems so much the master, the talent comes in crushing 
and confusing the great ones and in inevitably shutting them down. 
So Peyton Manning goes home and Ricky Manning goes to the Super Bowl. And 
maybe, just maybe, a quarterback that started the season as a third-stringer on 
his own team can wind up, as Jake Delhomme can, a Super Bowl champion. 
Last year, it was Brad Johnson's turn. The year before, the rookie Tom Brady. 
The year before that, Trent Dilfer, who could barely find work a season 
later. 
This is a Super Bowl without a marquee running back, without a marquee 
receiver. 
And not that long ago, there was Kurt Warner and John Elway twice and Troy 
Aikman three times and Brett Favre and Steve Young. 

BEST WE'VE EVER SEEN 
There was Jerry Rice catching and Terrell Davis running and Emmitt Smith 
scoring touchdowns and Michael Irvin pushing off and Marshall Faulk doing 
everything. They are or were all among the best we've ever seen. 
The epitaph for Dan Marino's career as a spectacular quarterback always has 
been "Yeah, but he couldn't win a Super Bowl." But how meaningful is that when 
Johnson and Dilfer and Mark Rypien have won. 
The entire profession of coaching is sucking the very life out of 
professional sports. Winning remains the only thing. And talent be damned.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/Sports/2004/01/20/318452.html

TAM