Coaches' words betray status as teachers
Feb 21, 2009
When Roy Williams accidentally dropped the “F-bomb,” to adopt the euphemism popular in accounts of the incident, the slip was met with gasps of surprise, clucking tongues, and shaking heads. That Williams’ post-game press conferences are broadcast live on a large regional radio network only amplified the reactions.
Williams let down his verbal guard previously on national television. Just moments after his Kansas squad’s loss in the 2003 NCAA championship contest, CBS reporter Bonnie Bernstein inquired about his interest in taking over at North Carolina. The question was predictable, and so was the coach’s dismissive response. His candor in disregarding the camera was both refreshing and unfortunate.
Wednesday night’s language choice had a different effect, eroding the aggressive sense of moral superiority adopted by many North Carolina fans in relation to Duke and its head coach, Mike Krzyzewski.
Two criticisms frequently aimed at Krzyzewski regard his won-loss record and his bench decorum.
Krzyzewski could challenge his mentor, Bob Knight, for career victories if he coaches for another three seasons. Should he fall just short, critics will point to the decision to ask the NCAA to attribute the Blue Devils’ 2-13 record in the second half of the 1995 season to interim head coach Pete Gaudet.
Krzyzewski was sidelined due to injury and exhaustion during the period his assistant ran the show. Other coaches, including Hall of Famer Phog Allen, for whom Dean Smith played at Kansas, received similar NCAA dispensations. Still, this resort to technicality meets with disdain in many quarters, often but not exclusively where the Tar Heel faithful gather.
Then there is Krzyzewski’s X-rated vocabulary and hectoring sideline manner. Lip readers watching telecasts of Duke games know well that Coach K is apt to express his displeasure, usually toward officials, in a matter both vociferous and profane. His outbursts have dwindled as he ages, and most game officials take the blasts in stride. Similarly, given his bionic hips, creaky knees, and greater maturity, Krzyzewski is not as physically demonstrative on the sidelines as he once was.
Meanwhile Tar Heel fans long basked comfortably in the knowledge that Smith, the UNC coach for 36 years, and his successor, Bill Guthridge, were scrupulous in maintaining public decorum. They did not curse, did not even tear off their sports jackets in expressions of dismay. When students at the Smith Center resorted to a popular chant derisively citing bovine excrement to characterize an official’s call, Smith invariably hurried to wave them into silence.
Williams is not visibly bothered when today’s Carolina students take up the bull-stuff chant, which in fairness happens rarely. The coach also uses barely-disguised but marginally acceptable words such as frigging to express his displeasure. Wednesday night he went farther, undermining any justifiable claims of superior comportment compared with Krzyzewski.
In fact, the more interesting aspect of Williams’ slip was what it revealed about the inner workings of a game in which well-compensated men dressed in ties and jackets, fancying themselves teachers, role models, and representatives of great universities, think nothing of employing various degrees of derision, emotional excess, and verbal assault to guide the young people they lead. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else in virtually any walk of life getting away with similar behavior.
Williams, a man with a temper, admittedly resorts to profanity in practice and huddles. Virginia’s Dave Leitao is probably the worst practitioner of the black verbal arts among ACC coaches. Those seated by his bench have been shocked by Leitao's language. So, probably, was All-ACC guard J.R. Reynolds when, during a break in the action a few years ago at the Dean Dome, his coach screamed loudly that he was a Williams-word disgrace to the University of Virginia.
Recently Leitao has toned down the abuse in public, waiting until others are out of earshot to let loose. This is commonly how it’s done. A coach must be highly successful like Knight or West Virginia’s Bob Huggins to get away with behavior that could get a struggling Leitao fired.
Surely it's not easy to operate in a competitive, intensely scrutinized setting for months on end. Inevitably, assertion and aspiration give way to frustration and anger. The results are not pretty.
Witness Maryland coach Gary Williams. During a game the competitor within erupts regularly to vigorously express displeasure. Displacing his anger, Williams periodically – and somewhat comically -- scurries down his bench to berate players or assistant coaches who are seated quietly, minding their own business.
Maryland’s Williams does know how to damp his inner fire once a game, impromptu lecture, or even an official’s admonition are done. The inability to find that balance in part led to unseasoned Matt Doherty’s dismissal as UNC’s head coach in 2003.
Wednesday night a mature, well-adjusted Roy Williams inadvertently crossed the verbal border between the acceptable and the cringe-inducing. He regretted it immediately, and said so. Still, it’s a mystery why coaches believe themselves exempt even in private from the bounds of decorum that apply in most classrooms or offices.
Those who claim a teacher’s mantle have a special obligation to lead by example, to model appropriate behavior, rather than claim exemptions that may result in embarrassment, coarsened public dialogue, and worse.
