Mentioned, although not at the front of the pack of reasons for the swoon, was the manager, Ned Yost. Some fans thought Yost ought to be fired. Some thought Robin Yount ought to be fired.
Of course, it’s ridiculous to talk about firing Yost, at least now. The old saying is that coaches get hired only to be fired. It will happen to Yost, too.
But it got me thinking of the nature of coaching, and in which sport coaching was most important. In what sport does the coach have the most ability to determine the success or failure of his team?
I immediately eliminated all college coaches, because at that level it’s like being in the CIA or working for IBM. The biggest part of your job is recruiting.
So, that got us to professional sports. I eliminated individual sports, like golf and tennis. Those are more teachers than coaches.
I eliminated hockey because I don’t understand it and don’t like it. Maybe I don’t like it because I don’t understand it, or maybe it’s vice-versa. Whatever.
I thought long and hard about soccer. Then I decided against it, primarily because of the language barrier.
That left us with basketball, baseball and football. In football and basketball we have coaches and in baseball we have a manager. They are all the same, no matter what you call them. They are in charge.
For these purposes, we are going to consider coaching as the entire coaching staff. There are a few coaches on the staff in basketball, a few more in baseball, and millions more in football. Football has more coaches than Congress has crooks.
Let’s look at what a coach has to do.
In all three sports, motivation is a big job. You can say that players who make the money they make don’t need to be motivated. But George Karl once told me “one of my biggest jobs is to make sure the players are mentally ready to play each game. To make sure they are hungry for a win.”
Different coaches have different ways of motivating players. Some treat their charges like children, others take the adult approach. The motivation task is a daily event, but it’s especially crucial when a team is going through a bad spell. Some say that’s when a coach really earns his money, getting a team to play hard game after game during a losing streak.
It’s fair to say that the importance of motivating players is about equal among the three sports.
Take a look at lineup creation. Who starts and who is a reserve.
In all three sports, you lead with your best. In basketball you may have a little bit of leeway depending on certain matchups. In baseball you have the whole left-hander, right-hander thing and that requires some serious decision-making. Baseball also has the advantage of an unbelievable amount of statistical information to help managers make these decisions. Football is less about matchups and more about unit cohesion. In lineup creation, I think it’s a tie between basketball and baseball.
Now, consider practice sessions.
Baseball practice sessions are largely hitting and fielding practice. Someone hits groundballs and fly balls and you take your turn in the batting cage. There is very rarely practice during a day off. Most practice takes place before the game. Not much managing going on during practice.
Basketball practice is a little more coach directed. You may put in a play or two for an opponent, and practice against a play or two of your opponent. But then you run some, you shoot some and you practice free throws. Again, some coach direction, but not a ton.
In football, practice is extremely important. The coaching staff puts in an entirely new game plan on both offense and defense. Assignments are changed. A playbook, that might have as many as 150 different plays and play combinations, is whittled down to the ones that will be used this week. Football coaches have more practice importance by a wide margin.
Finally, let’s talk about in-game coaching. What happens during the period of time your team is playing the game.
In basketball, you may have some substitution issues, but the game is largely one of momentum. If you have it the coach tries to keep it. If the other team has it, the coach tries to interrupt it.
Football is more complicated. Depending on what offensive or defensive alignment your opponent is in, you need to call a scheme to match it or exploit it. There is some guesswork involved, but that guesswork is based on experience and there are a lot of voices involved in making the decision.
In baseball, so much relies on hunches. Do you pull a pitcher who has runners on base and a rising pitch count? Do you send a runner with two strikes on the batter? Who’s your best bet for a pinch hitter? Where do you line up your fielders to have the best chance of making a play on defense?
In game coaching, I give a slight edge to baseball over football and a big edge to both over basketball.
And overall, I think it’s the baseball manager who has the ability to most affect his team’s performance. It’s close, but maybe that’s why in baseball they call it a manager and in football and basketball they are called coaches.
