I mean, how often do só see a great coach smiling serenely?
hypercompetitive and perfectionistic demanding coaching style, but there have been successful examples of coaches who have been true to themselves and coached very differently. For example, Phil Jackson in basketball and Tony Dungy in the NFL. I think players today relate better to a more nuanced style of coaching than existed when I was young and I definitely have seen a paradigm shift in coaching.
I think being a "leader of men" and having "charisma" has replaced the "drill sergeant" style of coaching and I think that is what you are seeing in Coach Freeman.
Is "niceties" even a word?
Anyways, Lou was always intensely staring at the field, and if you screwed up your assignment on a play, he'd definitely chew you out, grabbing your face mask and hollering at you.
For a small man, he was definitely intimidating, but his teams at ND were some of the best disciplined ones who didn't shoot themselves in the foot with stupid plays very often.
I'll gladly take that kind of an attitude if it translates to winning.
And yet they are never satisfied and are relentless
-in-the-headlights look. Looking overwhelmed and really being overwhelmed are two different things. Some guys, unfortunately, look overwhelmed and really are overwhelmed. We have some folks here who pretend that this is not what they see, but they see it, nonetheless.
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When I got to the place where I was going to list examples of nice guy head coaches who were also successful, I could only come up with Andy Reid. I feel like there are other examples, but I just can't think of any.
But then again, he had Andy Grove (author of Only the Paranoid Survive) as a co-leader. Later he had Craig Barrett running things.
I kid, I kid.
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He was legitimately crying on the field..some people took this as being soft ..he was a great coach ..tough and showed genuine concern for his guys..
Lou, Bobby Knight and other great ones fit this bill entirely.
But that isn't the case here.