Simply Put- Aggressive Coaches

The headlines of the front page of a local paper recently announced criminal charges against a former wrestling coach at Marianna High had been dismissed. The coach had been charged with abusing 2 athletes over a year ago and was initially charged with felony child abuse. Those charges were later reduced to misdemeanors and have now been dismissed. I noted a couple of interesting comments made in the article.

First, the assistant state attorney indicated the charges were being dismissed because the victim does not wish to press charges and without the victim there is insufficient evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s not what I would call a ringing endorsement that nothing occurred.

Secondly, the article attributes a self assessment by the former coach which he said that as a wrestling coach he is aggressive and direct in his approach. That got me to thinking. Just what is an aggressive coach? I looked the word aggressive up in the dictionary. Aggressive is defined as "inclined toward hostile behavior".

When I think of aggressive coaches and non-aggressive coaches, two successful college basketball coaches come to mind. Bobby Knight would certainly fall into the aggressive category. And he certainly has had success in coaching, having won more basketball games than any other coach in Division 1 basketball. I know that he has a lot of folks that admire him. I am not one of those folks.

Aggressive coaches, in my opinion, used tactics such as humiliation, intimidation, fear, confrontation, harassment, manipulation, bullying, throwing tantrums, throwing property (such as chairs) and culminating at times by physically putting their hands on athletes in a threatening or abusive manner. Knight has used many of these tactics. In my experiences, aggressive coaches suffer from low self esteem and base their entire self worth on their winning record or championships.

When I think of non-aggressive coaches I think of John Wooden, legendary former coach at UCLA. While Knight has won more ball games than Wooden, he pales in comparison to Wooden when it comes to National Championships. Knight also, in my opinion, pales in comparison to Wooden as a coach and a man. Wooden was a teacher that used respect (not fear) to motivate his players. Rest assured he was as competitive, tough and demanding as Bobby Knight. But he never felt the need to try to humiliate, intimidate or bully his players. He certainly never felt the need to put his hands on his players in a threatening or abusive manner. A John Wooden type of coach is comfortable in who they are and know that their self worth is based on much more than their winning record.

So when I hear any coach describe themselves as "aggressive" I shake my head in disgust and get as far away from them as possible. For me and my kids, I’ll take a John Wooden type coach any day of the week. From the front porch: Coach said be quick but never hurry.