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Posted (edited)

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?

Edited by statsman
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Posted (edited)
20 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Knowingly covering up and looking the other way at child molestation in your facility is a complete fucking weirdo. 

Sure. But I see it this way (and this is not an argument I’m going to continue with; I think you have a very strong point)- Paterno spent decades building an image as college football’s paragon of virtue. That image was the most important thing to him. He probably convinced himself that protecting that image was also protecting PSU. 
 
Tragic, really, and the most tragic part is the damage inflicted on the children, and not to Joe Paterno’s image. 
 
(I think the historic analog to Sandusky is Lavrenty Beria. He was Stalin’s right hand man, the Russian equivalent to both Dean Acheson and Leslie Groves, and a serial killer/rapist). 

Edited by statsman
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Posted
6 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

tom osborne and bob stoops belong in this conversation somewhere

I don’t know- I think they were just guys that had more extreme calibrations on the amount of trouble they would tolerate for a given talent level. They knew their star players’ crimes had to be addressed; they just sought the least impact. Plus, Osborne and Stoops would absolutely eject a less talented player that got into trouble. 
 
Briles and Meyer didn’t seem to understand what the problem was with what their criminal players did. 

Posted
8 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I’d consider all the sideline screamers dysfunctional.  It’s a job, you are a professional.  Act accordingly. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Fondren & Main said:

Where is Bobby Bowden on the scale?

Do you think he was a sociopath? I don’t. 
 
When asked why he was lenient on misbehaving players, he said he didn’t want to punish the whole team for what one guy did. (Note- the army discovered a long time ago that one way to reform misbehavior is to punish everyone in a unit, except the miscreant.) I see him as having situational ethics (like almost anyone) more than sociopathy. 

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Posted (edited)

If you watch the America’s Team Netflix series, the former Cowboy players opinion of Barry Switzer is very different from what most of us thought.    Frankly I was surprised how much they respected him in retrospect.  True everything went to crap under his leadership, but that can’t all be blamed on Barry and certainly the disfunction carried over to this day.  Barry ceded almost all personnel issues to Jerry and the Front Office  and that is where  Jerry employed Fixers to try to keep his players out of trouble. And of course unlike Jimmy Johnson, Barry didn’t even try to challenge or have input on player move or draft picks.   That was all Jerry from Jimmy’s departure to present.  

 Now we can agree almost unanimously his tenure at OU especially the later days in Norman might fit your take.   They had so much crap occur on and off the field that violated NCAA rules that in totality  made SMU’s look like parking tickets and they should’ve received the Death Penalty.   

Edited by Nueces River Rat
Posted

Sociopath is on another level clinically but I get the idea. I think it's highly probable to identify some deviant behaviors or tendencies from all highly successful people in all professions. Hell... look at Muschamp, except when he coached for us so it was cool. 

Posted

I see a spectrum of behavior between a coach saying, “What you did was wrong, and I fully support law enforcement in bringing you to justice” and “Give me that bloody knife. If I hide it, I can be sure it won’t be found”.

In the middle of that spectrum is, “You got yourself into trouble, and if you can get yourself out of trouble, you can still play for me”. That middle spot is where most coaches are. They justify it to themselves in various ways, but it’s really situational ethics. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Kim Mulkey definitely belongs on the list if it's sports in general and not just football.

Tell me more, if there is more to it than just defending Briles. I think she’s a high strung weirdo, but are there other stories?

Posted
3 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Kim Mulkey definitely belongs on the list if it's sports in general and not just football.

I mean if we are going to go to all coaches it really opens up a wonderful pandoras box of really dysfunctional people...

Bobby Knight Chair Throw GIF

 

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Posted (edited)

The Briles thing is pretty bad

 

“If somebody's around you, and they ever say, 'I will never send my daughter to Baylor,' you knock them right in the face."

She also tried to keep Brittany Griner from coming out.  She acts like a crazy person on the sidelines.  I can't imagine her former players like her very much.

Edited by kevwun
Posted
1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Knowingly covering up and looking the other way at child molestation in your facility is a complete fucking weirdo. 

Right, Paterno is at the top of this list for me. Briles is about as bad as it gets, but he was a sociopath dead set on winning games. Paterno knew about Sandusky in 2002 and was also aware that Sandusky was deeply involved in a program for underprivileged youth for YEARS after that. There wasn't even a winning incentive there. It's obviously tough to rank these guys because they're all scumbags, but Paterno acting like the fucking pope the whole time makes my skin crawl. 

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Posted
30 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

If you watch the America’s Team Netflix series, the former Cowboy players opinion of Barry Switzer is very different from what most of us thought.    Frankly I was surprised how much they respected him in retrospect.

So they didn't interview Aikman?

Posted

IIRC, Aikman just said Switzer's style was more of treating players as men and that they should handle their business; which was a recipe for disaster, given some of the players' inclinations.

Posted

I don't know if there's any new ground to cover here.

In the days before NIL and the portal, coaches had a huge amount of power over kids' futures, and many successful coaches used that to drive their teams hard. Some of these guys were successful.

Urban is a particularly awful example of this. I don't think very many coaches are like him, and I'm glad the era where a guy like that COULD be successful is over. 

The new reality is that coaches actually have to be good coaches to succeed. You have to be someone guys want to play for. Bob Stoops, Nick Saban, Pete Carroll, Kirby Smart and Sark fit that mold. And if you don't agree with me, take a look at comments their former players have about them. They're ADORED by em.

Meanwhile, we had two guys off the Meyer coaching tree... how'd that work out for us? 

Anyway, fuck Urban Meyer

Posted
1 hour ago, Jimmy Two Times said:

Paterno knew about Sandusky in 2002 and was also aware that Sandusky was deeply involved in a program for underprivileged youth for YEARS after that. There wasn't even a winning incentive there. It's obviously tough to rank these guys because they're all scumbags, but Paterno acting like the fucking pope the whole time makes my skin crawl. 

nathan fillion castle GIF

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