Favorite intense coaches: Harbaugh and ?
I still am in a happy state of shock we FINALLY have an emotional, extremely competitve, no nonsense coach that just won't tolerate anything less than 100% effort. Also loving the hires Jim Harbaugh has made so far. This staff will be the same page of intensity and persuit of excellence and the team will have attitude.
It is also no secret that Harbaugh can be .. eh well.. a real pill to deal with. After some discussions with fellow fanatics, I come to realize I love this type of personality. I worship Beilein, but at the end of the day, prefer the more intense Harbaugh personality - maybe if for no other reason than it is more entertaining, and I feel they have as much pain as their fan's when their team underperforms.
Yesterday, I was watching Atletico upset Real Madrid yesterday and it reminded me of Harbaugh's Stanford dumping of pretty boy Pete Carrol and his all-star USC team. Atletico's coach, Diego Simeone, was so passionate you could just feel him will his team on to kick RM's butt. Diego looks like he is ready for a street fight every game. Love him!
Stan Van Gundy is another scruffy, kooky coach who is having a great run playing hardnosed ball (they look fresher than their opponents) and leading the troops with "the f'ckin wall". I'm on the bandwagon now.
So my question is who are your favorite intense coaches and is this the best personality to lead a team (for example did Caldwell's calmness, and no lack of make up call, cost the Lions?) ?
January 8th, 2015 at 4:42 PM ^
My wife doesn't like hockey very much. However, whenever Babcock is on after the game, ESPECIALLY after a playoff game, she stops and watches because she is always amazed at how he treats the questioners like snot-nosed kids, that don't know a thing about hockey.
January 8th, 2015 at 11:58 AM ^
I think hockey, football and soccer to some extent benefit more from intense coaches since they are very physical and intensity and emotion is key. Red Wing fans have enjoyed 25 years of seeing most every shift being played with relative intensity. It is not coincidence they have the longest playoff streak in pro sports.
January 8th, 2015 at 4:53 PM ^
He was demanding but in an unpredictable way. From the encyclopedia "Bowman was intense, demanding, unpredictable, and brilliant. He was respected by his players, but not liked. Montreal goalie Ken Dryden , in his excellent 1983 book The Game, wrote this: "Scotty Bowman is not someone who is easy to like…. Abrupt, straightforward, without flair or charm, he seems cold and abrasive, sometimes obnoxious, controversial but never colorful. He is not Vince Lombardi, tough and gruff with a heart of gold. His players don't sit and tell hateful-affectionate stories about him…. He is complex, confusing, misunderstood, unclear in every way but one. He is a brilliant coach, the best of his time." Canadiens star Steve Shutt put it this way: "You hated him 364 days years, and on the 365th day you got your Stanley Cup ring." http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3407900071.html
But then when he came to Pittsburgh, he loosened up on the team that he had there. Eventually he was more the kind of coach that would adapt to what he had and use it as best he could.
"Scotty Bowman was the first coach to use videotape to scout opposing teams. He was the first to demand his players track their plus-minus statistics to gauge their effectiveness on the ice. He was unsurpassed at mixing and matching his lineups. He made strategic changes at dizzying speed to keep the other team guessing."
He was intense only in the sense that he was inscrutable, that nobody could ever figure out what he was really thinking.
January 8th, 2015 at 11:57 AM ^
Parcells or Jimmy Johnson for me. Hated both because of the teams they coached but they are two that are at the top for me.
January 8th, 2015 at 12:02 PM ^
January 8th, 2015 at 12:25 PM ^
January 8th, 2015 at 12:31 PM ^
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January 8th, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
January 8th, 2015 at 1:35 PM ^
How has no one said Steve Spurrier?
He's one of my favorite press-conferences to watch. Whether you hate his teams or the SEC, I still love to see his press conferences. He's passionate and not afraid to call it like he see's it.
I remember watching a press conference of his from earlier this year after they beat Georgia. Third game of the year he knew what he had and he was 100% right. He said "we're not a very good football team, but somehow we just beat one, but we're not a very good fotoball team. We can be! But we're not a very good football team and if we keep playing like we're playing we won't be a very good football team."
At that point they were 2-1 and finished 7-6 after they beat The U in their bowl game. He was entertaining and dead on.
January 8th, 2015 at 1:41 PM ^
January 8th, 2015 at 2:00 PM ^
Woody Hayes was pretty intense. Bobby Knight is right in there too. Lunatic intense.
January 8th, 2015 at 3:25 PM ^
Bo Schembechler, Vince Lombardi, George Allen.
January 8th, 2015 at 5:07 PM ^
January 8th, 2015 at 5:32 PM ^