I was listening to Joel Klatt’s podcast, where he was discussing the game with Urban Meyer. Klatt is great- a sharp guy, open about his recovery, enthusiastic about the college game. Meyer came across as weird, like he wasn’t relating to Klatt as a human. Klatt would offer up leading questions, giving Meyer opportunities to wax about past teams and players, and Meyer never bit. Every anecdote was about something Meyer did or said, and the only players’ names were said by Klatt.
We know Meyer’s history- he assembled a talented and powerful Florida squad, and was dismayed to see that he had a bunch of bad guys. He dealt with the problem he created by leaving. Arguably, the Florida program never recovered.
(I understand that Texas made a serious run at Meyer in 2020).
Is Meyer a sociopath? Or does he just have a few sociopathic tendencies? Football coaches, like Army Drill Instructors, see the drilling of young men to and past physical pain as part of the job.
I decided to see how many coaches I could place in a list of sociopaths. Art Briles came up next, of course. He built a great team that had a culture building rite of passage where they would roofie a coed and then gang rape her. When he learned of this, his main concern was not getting caught and keeping guys eligible. To this day, he asserts he did nothing wrong. (Baylor still won’t reveal all they know).
Switzer had a team blow up under criminal scandal, but I see him as more of a narcissist (which, I understand psychiatrists don’t define as a clinical disorder like they used to?) than a sociopath. Switzer spends too much time in image maintenance, and efforts to convince others that he’s not a bad guy. Meyer and Briles don’t really seem to give a shit what any of us think. Switzer does care.
Jackie Sherrill is a really weird dude, but he never had the (human) scandal the others did. He was unconstrained by ethics, was happy to create a fantasy image for himself out of made up stories, but the only human wreckage seems to be the horrorscape of his own tortured psyche.
Paterno will come up, because of the awful shit that Sandusky did, and Joe covered up for, but I don’t see him as the same type of weirdo. As I read his story, around 1999, the evidence that his right hand assistant was a monster had piled up so high that it couldn’t be ignored and he retired him. His main sins were supporting a coverup (thereby allowing Sandusky to continue to prey). I see Paterno as more of a cautionary tale- the guy who really wants to be a good guy, but who allows personal weakness and vanity to turn himself into the bad guy.
Am I missing any?