I spent my lunch hour listening to co-workers second guess the Panthers offensive play-calling in yesterday’s Super Bowl. I don’t like second-guessers, for a couple of reasons. Once a game is over, it’s easy to say the team that lost should have done something different. Feel free to advance any theory you want since there’s no way to wind back the clock and falsify it. It’s like taking a test when you already know the answers. It gives you an opportunity to make yourself sound smarter than the people who had to take the test without knowing the answers. What are the odds that someone with his fat ass parked on a sofa watching the game really came up with a better play-calling strategy than the coaching staff of a team with 17 wins and 1 loss? Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Coaches
Jerry Tarkanian, 1930 – 2015
I enjoyed watching his teams because unlike 99 percent of college basketball coaches, he didn’t spend the entire game yelling and calling timeouts every minute. He let the kids play and it was fun to watch . . . RIP Jerry Tarkanian RIP, Coach #Tark. pic.twitter.com/agvXuO1TYw — UNLV Athletics (@UNLVathletics) February 11, 2015 Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings from the underworld! I just read about a father and son teaming up to punch out the son’s high school basketball coach because the teen wasn’t getting enough playing time. What a heartwarming story! A lot of young black men don’t have a male role model in their lives. See you in Hell . . . Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Collected Thoughts
If you recognize the person on this next slide, please raise your hand. Don’t yell out the name, just raise your hand. About two-thirds of you recognize Derek Jeter. I thought everyone would recognize him, but still a clear majority. I’m not a Yankees fan or a Derek Jeter fan particularly but the Captain and I are on the same page on this topic. I have to admit I was pretty competitive as a student. I didn’t want anyone to do better than me and I especially didn’t want anyone to do better than me because they worked harder than me. This Jeter quote reminded me of a quote from another notable sports figure . . . This is Bob Knight, college basketball coach, most notably at the University of Indiana. He won 902 games, three NCAA championships, and he coached the 1984 Olympic basketball team to a gold medal.… Read more →
3 Links
9 Things Bruce Lee Taught Me About Programming What a coach can teach a teacher, 1975-2004: Reflections and reanalysis of John Wooden’s teaching practices Wolfram Programming Cloud Is Live! Read more →
Tedford Relieved of Duties, i.e., Fired
BERKELEY – Jeff Tedford, who has overseen the Golden Bear football program for the past 11 seasons, has been relieved of his duties as head football coach at the University of California, Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour announced Tuesday. — The University of California Official Athletic Site Tedford must have seen this coming back in August when he put his house on the market for a cool $5.35 million. He was saddled with a doofus quarterback as a throw-in on the Keenan Allen deal and the team’s 3-9 record speaks for itself. Tedford did a lot of good things at Cal. He took over a 1-10 team in 2002 and won seven games his first season. In 2004, Cal went 10-2, finished ninth in the final AP poll, and in 2006, the Golden Bears went 10-3. Tedford was getting NFL offers during that time and turning them down. He was… Read more →
Mac Wilkins: What The Discus Can Teach You About Life
Deadspin has an excellent “as told to” story on former Olympic discus thrower Mac Wilkins (What The Discus Can Teach You About Life: Lessons From One Of America’s Greatest Throwers) Wilkins made four straight U.S. Olympic teams, winning a gold medal in 1976, a silver in 1984, and finishing fifth in 1988. He was also the first man to throw the discus more than 70 meters, and he held the world record for over two years, bettering his own mark three times between April 1976 and August 1978. Some excerpts: So one day I go out to train and I say, Oh, what the heck. Let’s just give it a little extra effort today. And I did, and I got better and it went farther. And I thought that was kind of fun. What if I could that again tomorrow? And so pretty soon, I’m hooked on, Can I do… Read more →
Twitter: 2010-07-27
RT @PetrosAndMoney: Pola is the best coach ive ever been around and a better person and a dear friend…he can make great backs-p # Read more →
BE THE HAMMER!
I’m a special teams coach. I get guys to run 60 miles an hour into each other and like it. I always tell my players: Be the hammer. Not the nail. — USC special teams coach John Baxter FIGHT ON! Read more →
John Wooden, 1910-2010
I thought John Wooden was going to live forever. I grew up here in Southern California watching his UCLA Bruin teams dominate college basketball. The main thing I learned from that is that success is a result of preparation. Coach Wooden was a teacher. After he retired, he used to say that he didn’t miss the games and he didn’t miss the tournaments, but he did miss the practices. College basketball today is unwatchable, in my opinion. The coaches are all bug-eyed lunatics, screaming, waving their arms, tearing their hair out. I’m sickened by these college basketball coaches and their look-at-me theatrics. Does that help the team win? I watched UCLA win 10 championships and I don’t think Coach Wooden even got out of his chair the whole time. Draw your own conclusions. Read more →
Playing Up
Last weekend’s WIHA roller hockey tournament in Irvine brings us a lesson in hubris . . . My kid plays for Revision Devil Dogs, a 16U AA team. Unfortunately, the 16U teams showing up for WIHA tournaments this season haven’t been providing a lot of competition for the boys so they’ve played up the last couple of tournaments in the 18U AA division. In this one, they found themselves in a situation where if they won their fourth and final round-robin game against AKS by at least two goals, they’d finish in a three-way tie for second and would, based on a complex tie-break formula including goals against, get to play in the final. A Devil Dog loss, tie or even a one-goal victory would put AKS in the final. AKS is a good team. They beat the Devil Dogs easily in a tournament in February and seemed to be… Read more →
NARCh – Day 3
Quarterfinals: The Devil Dogs led 1-0 most of the game, but gave up two goals in the last minute to lose 2-1. They’re out of the tournament. My son was crying after the game when he came out of the locker room — not weeping, but he had tears in his eyes. Don’t tell him I told you. He never cries after games. I was this close to crying myself when I saw him. I’m now going to violate my policy of never questioning coaches’ decisions. Hockey’s a team game, but if I’m going to lose a game in the last minute, I’m going to lose it with my strongest players on the rink. I was looking out there with a minute left and a 1-0 lead and I couldn’t see how having the two biggest, fastest kids on the bench gave the team the best chance to win that… Read more →
Postgame
“What did the coach say to you guys after the game?” I ask my son. Long pause. “I can’t remember,” he says. “But I absorbed it.” Read more →
A Missed Opportunity
USC coach Pete Carroll and UCLA assistant Eric Scott were both at Thursday’s Crenshaw game. — Scott Wolf inside USC Interesting . . . I would have thought Eric Scott would be out robbing the houses of people attending the Crenshaw game . . . FIGHT ON! Read more →
School Choice
Another gem from the freshman football mailing list . . . Of the four high schools here in Irvine, only one — Irvine High — has a stadium on campus. There’s a movement afoot, led by local attorney and parent Emmett Raitt, to build a second stadium. Here’s an excerpt from Emmett’s email suggesting that parents write to the school board about this matter: The reasons a second stadium are needed include the elimination of Thursday night games, which lowers student attendance at games; it will ease the overcrowding of the Irvine Stadium facility (and particularly the snack bar, a personal favorite of mine); and it will allow all schools to use District facilities for their graduations, which they do not now do. Hmmm . . . I can’t see how increasing student attendance is going to ease overcrowding, nor do I think the fact that some local fatso thinks… Read more →
The Hard Way
Death of Esperanza coach brings team together — Orange County Register This couldn’t have been accomplished with a barbeque or a pizza party? Read more →
UCLA Coach Makes a Home Visit
The Orange County Register has an update on last week’s arrest of UCLA assistant football coach Eric Scott on suspicion of felony burglary: UCLA officials said Monday that the background check on receivers coach Eric Scott was conducted by the university and not an outside agency, as previously stated. But, again, Athletic Director Dan Guerrero and Coach Karl Dorrell were unaware that Scott had been arrested four times between 1996 and 2005. The Bruins coach, who was arrested for a fifth time last week on a charge of residential burglary, previously had pleaded guilty or was convicted of misdemeanor carrying a concealed weapon in 2005 and misdemeanor disturbing the peace in 2002. OOPSIE! UCLA: University of Coaches Looting Apartments. Coach Scott is on administrative leave at this time. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions regarding his guilt or innocence based strictly on his extensive list of priors. Read more →
Pacific Cup 2007
My son’s roller hockey team won the Pacific Cup final last weekend. For teams in California, Arizona and Nevada, Pacific Cup is the biggest tournament of the year, not counting national championships. The team will be playing at NARCh in a couple of weeks. His 12-and-under team won the NARCh tournament two years ago, but I’m not as optimistic with this year’s bunch. The problems include: Read more →
Timeouts Considered Harmful
Mike Shanahan never calls a timeout to ice the kicker because Jason Elam let him in on a little secret among the kicking fraternity: most of them like the extra time to check out the conditions. — “There goes that theory,” L.A. Daily News The article goes on to quote several other kickers who say the timeout gives them a chance to get out on the field, go through their whole routine, fix up the field if they need to, and generally improves their chances of making the kick. Vikings kicker Ryan Longwell says that coaches fear being second-guessed if they don’t try to ice the kicker: “So I think a lot of coaches do that just for that reason, to clear their conscience on using all the timeouts.” This confirms a theory of mine, that a lot of things coaches — in any sport — do during a game… Read more →
I Love the BCA!
The Black Coaches Association (BCA) is about to issue grades to colleges and universities on their minority hiring practices: The BCA asked each of the 28 schools that had job openings during the past year to complete a form that was analyzed by an outside firm. Any school that does not complete a form receives an F. At USC, our traditional football rivalries are with UCLA and Notre Dame. Both of these schools have black head coaches and we kick their tails every year. Last year’s scores: USC 47, UCLA 22 USC 45, Notre Dame 14 More black head coaches! Fight On! Read more →