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The coaching life is not for the 9-to-5 set. It is not for people who like a peaceful
existence. It is not for those who thrive on job security.
The coaching life means stress and high blood pressure. It means the ups and downs of
winning and losing as well as frequently getting hired and fired.
"The coaching life" is what we are calling this series of articles looking at
the men who help NFL players prepare for battle.
As you follow this series in the months to come, you will get a better understanding of
this high-profile, high-anxiety profession through an in-depth look at the many different
issues in an NFL coach’s life as well as personality profiles on some of the
league’s most intriguing men who call the shots.
The Ravens were defending Super Bowl champions, and head coach Brian Billick had a
message to send to his club in training camp as Baltimore began preparations to defend its
title.
Intent on getting his team to focus on the one-week-at-a-time grind necessary to
accomplish great things instead of just paying attention to the glory that can be found at
the finish line, Billick had the lights dimmed in the room.
A scene from the movie "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid" started
playing. The two bandits were in trouble, trapped at the edge of a cliff.
"We’ve got to jump." Butch said.
"But I can’t swim," responded the Sundance Kid.
"Hell, the fall will probably kill us," Butch said.
The lights flicked back on and Billick told his players the season would probably kill
them. Don’t worry about who is in hot pursuit, don’t worry about the end result,
was the rationale. Just jump off the cliff, and if they made it they’d figure out how
to float down the river from there.
Setting the tone. It’s what good head coaches do.
Like a CEO in the business world, like the captain of a ship, head coaches set a course
and try to make sure everyone works together in getting there.
"You have to sell your system, sell yourselves as head coaches and make them
understand that we’re here to help them and work together," Buccaneers head
coach Jon Gruden said last season when he was still the head coach of the Raiders.
"We try and create an environment where these guys actually like coming in here, and
I hope they do, because that’s important to me. But at the same time, there are
standards that we’ve all got to live up to. And if you can’t row that boat with
the rest of us, we’re probably going to have to get somebody else in that position to
take those oars. That’s our job."
Steelers head coach Bill Cowher said, "As a head coach I think that you have to be
able to work with people, facilitate responsibilities, (oversee) your players. Try and get
a whole organization pulling in the same direction and creating a degree of unselfishness
where people are accepting roles and excelling at them; and I think trying to keep
everything in perspective. Usually it’s never as bad as they say it is, and it’s
probably never as good as you think it is. So I think it’s trying to keep things on
an even keel and getting people pulling in the right direction."
If a team could look in the mirror, it should see its head coach’s face.
"A team takes on the personality of its coach," Cardinals LB Rob Fredrickson
said.
In the book "Super Bowl: The Game of Their Lives," former Cowboys DB James
Washington said, "Before we beat San Francisco for the second straight year in the
NFC championship game, (head coach) Jimmy Johnson called up a radio station to say we were
going to win. He wanted everybody to know how sure he was. That was the type of arrogance
that his players showed. We were a very young team and took our lead from Jimmy Johnson.
It was kind of like being in the military, where you take on the attitude of your general.
You see that your general has a lot of confidence, then you begin to have a lot of
confidence."
Usually the messages are not this brazen, this public, this headline-making. More
subtle messages are just as important for head coaches to deliver in setting the proper
tone for their team.
A good head coach must set the tone on … attitude.
"My philosophy has always been that there are a lot of things we can coach, teach
and remind, but it is hard to coach attitude," Giants head coach Jim Fassel said.
"It has to be something we are always talking about and becomes ingrained. When you
have a team that isn’t playing hard and doesn’t care about winning, then
you’ve got problems."
A good head coach must set the tone on … a no-nonsense attitude.
"He wasn’t going to tolerate guys being late, guys being close to being
late," Patriots WR Troy Brown said of head coach Bill Belichick’s approach when
he became the team’s head coach. "He wanted guys at meetings early and ready to
go early. He wasn’t taking any crap from anybody. He started issuing fines for every
little thing that we did wrong. He came in and we meet more than we ever did. We come in
earlier in the morning now. That’s just some of the things that he did. He
doesn’t tolerate any B.S. from anybody. … So he’s not afraid to put his
foot down and get his point across. Other guys see that, and they’re afraid to mess
up."
In the book "Vince Lombardi on Football," Lombardi said, "I remember the
opening day of practice in Green Bay when I was a head coach for the first time in pro
football. Afterward, when I walked back into a locker room, I wanted to cry. The
lackadaisical, almost passive attitude was like an insidious disease that had infected the
whole squad.
"The next day there were almost 20 players in the trainer’s room waiting for
diathermy or the whirlpool or a rubdown. I blew my stack.
" ‘What is this?’ I yelled, "an emergency casualty ward? Get this
straight! When you’re hurt, you have every right to be here. But this is disgraceful.
I have no patience with the small hurts that are bothering most of you. You’re going
to have to live with small hurts, play with small hurts if you’re going to play for
me.’
"The next day when I walked into that room there were only two players
there."
A good head coach must set the tone on … showing no panic.
Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer was head coach of the Redskins last season,
and Washington got off to a 0-5 record. Asked what being 0-5 was like, Schottenheimer
said, "I did not pay much attention to it. If anything, it only heightened my
resolve. … I did not let it bother me. I think it’s important that the people
that you’re working with, be it coaches or players, see the way you manage adversity,
because my experience has always been they’re going to follow your lead. If you come
apart at the seams, then they’re going to come apart at the seams. But if you stay
the course with a steady resolve, ultimately they’ll do the same thing."
In the book "Winning is a Habit: Vince Lombardi on Winning, Success and the
Pursuit of Excellence," Lombardi said, "The strength of a group is the strength
of the leader. Many mornings when I am worried or depressed, I have to give myself what is
almost a pep talk, because I am not going before the ballclub without being able to exude
assurance. I must be the first believer, because there is no way you can hoodwink the
players."
Just as there are many areas in which a head coach must set the tone for his
organization, there is more than one way to do so.
Two of the surprise teams in the NFL last season were the Browns and the Bears, coached
by Butch Davis and Dick Jauron respectively.
What follows is a closer look at how each coach set the tone for his team’s
improved play.
Butch Davis
Davis had just been hired by the Cleveland Browns. One of the first people he told was
his 8-year-old son Drew, who showed all of the enthusiasm of a kid who has just been told
by his dad that he got him a Betamax and an eight-track cartridge player.
"The Cleveland Browns?" Drew said. "They stink."
The kid wasn’t wrong. The team was coming off a two-season stretch in which it had
posted hideous records of 2-14 and 3-13. The Browns did stink.
The problem was, everyone knew it. The fans knew it. The media knew it. The rest of the
league knew it. Davis didn’t concern himself with any of that.
The bigger problem was, the Browns probably knew it as well. That was something Davis
had to do something about.
"You had to change just the perception from within of who this football team
was," Davis said. "… We tried to change the idea that this team was not
losers. So many people had labeled them as losers and that they couldn’t play for
anybody else in the league, the only reason that they were even in the NFL was that they
were playing for Cleveland, an expansion franchise. Obviously you try to build their self
esteem, their self respect and give them a reason to hope."
Davis tried to instill the belief that they were going to play to try to win every
single game. He wasn’t predicting a 16-0 record. He was saying the Browns
weren’t losers anymore and that every game should be viewed as an opportunity for a
victory.
As early as training camp, the Browns were acting like a team that recently had plastic
surgery to put a new face on the club.
In late August, LB Wali Rainer said, "I think it’s been the most upbeat camp
because everyone has come in with this attitude that we hate losing. It’s not just
people saying, ‘The Cleveland Browns, oh, we’re playing the Browns.’
That’s not our attitude. We’re going out, we’re going to beat you,
we’re going to bang with you. That’s the whole attitude here. So I think
it’s been a pretty good camp."
The Browns did not head into the regular season like a team that had gotten used to
receiving beatings by the opposition.
"We had a swagger before the season started," Browns QB Tim Couch said.
"During training camp we felt like we were going to have a good team. It’s the
way coach Davis put it in our heads, that we were going to be a good team."
If the Browns had a new confidence heading into the season, they took on their
coach’s swagger with a fast start.
After losing their opening game, the Browns got their first win of the season, 24-14
over the Lions.
"We have a new attitude, and we’re not even thinking about last year,"
Browns WR Kevin Johnson said. "It’s a new beginning."
The following week, the Browns displayed a quality good teams have — they won a
game they could have easily thrown away.
The Browns were leading the Jaguars 13-7 in the third quarter and had the ball. Then
disaster struck. Browns RB Jamel White fumbled the ball and Jaguars CB Aaron Beasley
returned it 40 yards for a touchdown.
Trailing 14-13 early in the fourth quarter, Cleveland was driving for the go-ahead
score when disaster struck again. Couch fumbled the ball away. Instead of falling apart
like bad teams do when struck by adversity, the Browns hung tough and came back to win
23-14.
"I think that maybe the last two years we would have folded and lost the game in
those situations, but this team kept on fighting and believing in each other and good
things happened for us," Couch said.
The Browns were 3-1 before losing to the long-suffering Bengals 24-14. It was then that
it became apparent just how far Cleveland’s attitude had come. Defeat had actually
become unacceptable.
"I just expect more out of us this year," Couch said. "I don’t
expect us to lose that game. I thought that was a game we should have won, and I thought
the Seattle game (in Week One) was a game we should have won. So anytime that happens, it
just upsets me, but you’ve got to put it behind you. It’s just a long season and
you’ve got to move on."
Not being satisfied to merely be improved was the next attitude adjustment Davis had to
inject into his club. Following the loss to the Bengals, the Browns record still stood at
a surprising 3-2 when the defending Super Bowl champion Ravens came to town.
Davis got after his club, telling the players that they weren’t preparing enough.
"If you want an analogy, I don’t want a brain surgeon that’s the first
guy out the door," Davis said. "If my life’s on the line with a lawyer, I
don’t want to go to some guy who can’t wait to get to happy hour. It’s the
same thing with football.
"There are 53 players and 16 coaches whose livelihoods depend on these guys to put
in their extra time to lift and watch film and be committed. If they’re not going to,
they can’t be here."
The Browns beat the Ravens 24-14.
Two losses followed and just as Davis knew when to crack his team on the knuckles
before the Ravens game, he realized that it needed a pat on the back at this time.
He made sure to let his team know it had made huge strides since the previous season.
He wasn’t stressing that his players should be satisfied. He was merely reminding
them that the positives should not be forgotten during tough times.
Davis compared the situation to your children falling down over and over and over again
when they are learning to walk. He said that if parents didn’t say ‘good job,
try again,’ a child would never learn to walk. That’s where he felt his club
was. They were young and they sometimes would fall down, but they also were on the path to
walking tall.
When the season was over, the Browns were a hugely improved 7-9.
"We came a long, long way," Couch said. "Last year, we weren’t
looked at as a good football team. We were looked at as a joke. We had no respect around
the league. Now teams have to prepare for us."
Davis has seen to that. His son had best re-evaluate his opinion of the Browns. They
stink no more.
Dick Jauron
The Bears were headed nowhere.
The head coach was headed to the unemployment line.
At least that’s what conventional wisdom said. Conventional wisdom was wrong.
The Bears had gone an unimpressive 11-21 in Jauron’s first two seasons as head
coach, and conventional wisdom said there was no reason to expect anything different in
2001. Conventional wisdom was wrong.
Making the picture even more bleak for Jauron’s future was the fact that Jerry
Angelo had been hired as general manager on June 12, 2001. Conventional wisdom said that
another bad season was on the horizon and that Angelo would fire Jauron after that
happened and would then bring in his own guy. Conventional wisdom was wrong.
The Bears were one of the shocking, out-of-nowhere stories of the year, winning the NFC
Central with a 13-3 record.
All the more remarkable was the fact that Jauron stuck to his guns and maintained the
status quo in terms of his coaching style even after 6-10 and 5-11 seasons.
Head coaches set the tone for their teams, and the tone Jauron set was that the
blueprint worked and no one should panic. With little evidence to back this up in his
first two seasons, the temptation had to be strong to tear up the blueprint, but Jauron
instead sent the confident message that all would work out even if the outside world
didn’t believe.
"He had a plan," Bears LB coach Dale Lindsey said. "He stuck by his
plan. He didn’t panic at any time, and I think the players saw a steady hand that
pointed in one direction, and that was up, and they followed it."
Bears C Olin Kreutz said, "Coach Jauron hasn’t changed. Even when we were
losing, he didn’t change. This year, he came in and his job was on the line, and he
didn’t change. We took that key from him."
The critics were everywhere before the season began, and their conventional wisdom was
that Jauron was too quiet, too laid back to win in the NFL. Conventional wisdom was wrong.
Jauron did not start breathing fire and spewing venom to jump-start his team. Instead,
he continued to set the tone in the calm manner that suited him best.
"He’s not a real talker, because talking doesn’t win games," Bears
MLB Brian Urlacher said. "Players win games and making plays wins games."
Kreutz said, "His philosophy is mostly just words don’t mean a thing. Be
ready and be prepared to play on Sundays."
Jauron’s school-teacher demeanor may not play real well on SportsCenter sound
bites, but it played well in the Bears’ locker room.
"He instills confidence in you," Kreutz said. "He’s got a quiet
confidence about him, and that’s what we take from him."
Bears LB Warrick Holdman said, "He’s kind of quiet, reserved, but he
motivates us. Instead of yelling and getting all rah-rah, he takes a different method. He
just tells you what needs to be done, tells you the things you need to do. …
He’s not the guy that’s going to go in the middle of the team room and break a
chair or crack the chalkboard over his head. But everybody reacts differently. Some guys
might like the guy that breaks the chair. Some people like myself, I like the guy that
just tells you what you need to do and lets you go play."
Jauron may have been sitting on the hottest seat in the organization, but he stayed
cool all season. That quality can be ideal for a league in which it can get very hot in
the kitchen.
"If head coaching was the entertainment industry, he wouldn’t be the first
act you would want to see, but as far as a head coach and organizing a team and keeping
composure in situations where many people lose it, I can’t think of a better
coach," said former Bears QB Danny Wuerffel, who now plays for the Redskins.
Jauron earned particularly high marks in his locker room for maintaining a positive
atmosphere, something that doesn’t always happen when a team hasn’t had a
winning season in a while.
"He’s real positive," Holdman said. "I’ve never seen him
criticize a player in public or yank him off the field or grab him by the facemask-type
stuff. He’s going to talk to you like a man, like a player. He’s not going to
hold anything back if you do something wrong or you messed up on a play. He’s going
to correct you, but he’s not going to belittle you in public or on TV. That’s
what I respect about him."
Bears OL Bernard Robertson said, "I don’t think I’ve seen him ride
anybody since I’ve been here. Nothing negative."
Former Bears MLB Mike Singletary, a Hall of Famer, said, "Even when I thought he
could have, I have never seen him take a player who was struggling and maybe played an
awful game, I have never seen him in the papers berate that player to protect himself
— never seen that. And that’s a real tribute.
"Even before this year, there were some opportunities last year and the year
before when he could have really, really hurt some players and just really jumped on the
bandwagon to save himself, and he didn’t take the opportunity. He took the high road.
A lot of coaches are out there saying, ‘This guy stinks. I don’t know what
he’s doing in football.’ And you and I both know who those are, but it’s
just not a good message. … Players get tired of that. They are already in the fish
bowl and they want somebody who is going to stand for them.
"They want to know that, ‘If I go out there and screw up there and I (am)
making the best effort that I possibly can and really stink up the place, I want a coach
that is going to hold me accountable, but not berate me. Not berate me.’ And I think
that really goes a long ways. I really do. … I think more so than anything else I can
appreciate that more than any other attribute that he has. The ability to stay above water
and respect himself and respect the players."
It’s not just that Jauron avoids negativity when times are tough. He has been
known to take a bullet for the team when criticism is being fired.
"He’s very loyal," Wuerffel said. "He sticks up for his coaches,
and I’m very impressed. A lot of times he stands up for things that aren’t
necessarily his fault, but because he’s in charge he does that. So he’s a great
person to play for and work for."
If all of this sounds like the cool, unmarried uncle who lets his nephews and nieces
get away with anything and everything because it’s not his job to instill discipline,
well, guess again.
"He’s definitely a hard fella guy," Bears CB R.W. McQuarters said.
"Once he lays down the rules, that’s it."
Jauron may not pound the table or speak with a roar, but when he talks people hear him
loud and clear.
"He’s not a man of many words, but the few words he does say just mean so
much and always have a clear-cut meaning or focus to them," former Bears WR
D’Wayne Bates said.
Urlacher said, "Everyone gives him a bum rap because he’s not real vocal to
the media, but when he needs to get us going, he gets us going. … (For example,) at
halftime when we’re losing in close games, he’ll say something to get us fired
up before we go out. He’s always real timely. He always says something at the right
time to get us going. It seems like we respond every time he does that. He’s awesome,
man."
Jauron’s vanilla words in a press conference may send you scrambling for the
remote control when you hear him on TV, but the same man’s words sent the Bears
scrambling for glory this past season.
"He told us at the beginning of training camp that we weren’t going to lose
anymore. And we believed him," Bears S Mike Brown said.
In other words, he set the tone for his team like a good coach should. He just set the
tone with the volume turned lower than most coaches do.
Perhaps more than anything, he set the tone by acting like the only person in Chicago
who wasn’t concerned whether or not it was inevitable that he would be fired after
the season was over.
"I’d be lying if I said I never wondered about it. But I never worried about
it," Jauron said. "There are some things that you should worry about, that are
worth worrying about, but I would say that a job is not one of them. Because all you can
do in that regard is the best you can do. All you can do is keep working at it."
The Bears saw this and followed Jauron’s lead. If he wasn’t going to be
distracted by the rumors, why should they? If he could keep his focus and continue to work
hard, what excuse could they have to do otherwise?
Jauron led, they followed. All the way to a startling division title.
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