Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Meyer is a brilliant strategist, and a great player talent scout (although a lousy judge of character), perhaps because he looks at players as “objects” to do what he tells them to do, and is primarily concerned with their ability to execute his strategies. 
 
Briles is even more so on each of those points- strategy, scouting and disdain for character. 

Posted
1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

I’d say all elite coaches just like all elite businessmen are sociopaths as well. 

John Wooden was a sociopath?

I get what you are saying just think there is a lot of nuance. 
 

Jimmy Johnson isn’t a sociopath even though for about 10 years he sure looked like one at times. 

Posted

Hugh Freeze has to be in this discussion. A long trail of sexual misconduct including allegations of problems with a HS girls basketball team, escorts, endless recruiting violations and lying about it, all wrapped up in a born-again image that he keeps publicly trumpeting.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

So a paleolithic human tribe is scratching out an existence, foraging for food, killing wounded animals, following herds, with what would be considered a horrific infant mortality rate. They're competing against a nearby tribe for resources. Which tribe ends up existing into the next generation, and the generation after that? The tribe with the well balanced leader, with great work life balance, little ego, who wants peace and harmony? Or the tribe with the leader who wants to annihilate all opposition, who demands obsessive devotion to no quarter. Who regularly calls out the manhood of members of the tribe when they're not sufficiently ruthless?

There is something very basic in us, cultivated over tens of thousands of years, that rewards the most ruthless among us. There is also something in the rest of us that recognizes that, and tends to want to team up with that kind of leader, because we feel like he has the best chance to win so we can pass down on genes to the next generation and the generation after that as well. 

If ruthlessness didn't serve some kind of real purpose, it would have ceased to exist long ago. The truth is, the ruthless among us tend to win, because they want it more, and they're willing to do things to accomplish victory the rest of us end up not having the appetite for. "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." "Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Being successful isn't all about being ruthless. It's about being able to identify talent, cultivate it, make it loyal. It's about having resilience. About making other people believe in you. But there are times when a certain sense of ruthlessness trumps other qualities. 

I would guess that every single one of the most successful football coaches in the history of the game had a certain amount of ruthlessness about him. John Wooden certainly did, who was mentioned above. 

Labels like sociopath, narcissist, etc. are helpful. But all of these are on a spectrum. Heck, dysfunction (I can't tell you how much it bothers me that's been misspelled twice now in this thread) is on a spectrum. I would argue by definition a successful head coach is not dysfunctional in a clinical sense of the word. These are qualities that have always existed, that modern psychology has now put a label on to make it more easily identifiable and analyzed. But all of these qualities contributed to the human race existing as the species it is right now, otherwise they would have died out. We too easily want to throw out these qualities as harmful or destructive, as if people who exhibit them should be erased from the gene pool, when that's not actually possible. 

If I'm in a contest where extinction is the penalty for losing, I will gladly take the most ruthless psychopath to be my leader. Better for the opponent to face extinction rather than me. At the end of the day, that instinct for survival is what we're tapping into with any confrontation or challenge. It may not seem like the outcome is of that kind of importance, but the person who is able to convince themselves on some level that what is in front of them is an existential threat has an edge on someone else who is not able to do that, all other things being equal. 

I don't want an Art Briles level of sociopathy to be the head coach at Texas. But I do want a certain amount of single mindedness that winning is critical for their job security and emotional well being. It's not the only quality that's important. But it is important. 

I like Steve Sarkisian as a person, at least what I see from him. But I do not need to. I need him to win at a very high level without embarrassing the university while doing so. There's the video out there of him screaming at the official, "Don't fucking touch me." It's probably my favorite Sarkisian clip. I also liked the psychopathic smile and snarky attitude he answered Kirk Bohls with when asked about red zone deficiencies in a recent press conference. Nice Guy Steve is fine, but I like a little asshole rolled in there, too. 

Which is not to say coaches shouldn't be judged for crossing lines. I was and am in favor of Chris Beard getting fired. I thought it was horse shit when Tom Herman hired Casey Horny on the staff. But there's a lot of behavior that many of us would classify as abusive that's meant to bring out the best in each individual player and the team as a whole. A lot of that is how the world actually works, particularly in highly competitive environments. 

Probably my favorite movie on this dynamic is Whiplash, because it shows the titular villain in the worst light, and then at the end of the movie it turns out the methods worked. Band of Brothers shows something similar. More than anything, we get the same behaviors and the same mindsets because they work. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)
24 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

So a paleolithic human tribe is scratching out an existence, foraging for food, killing wounded animals, following herds, with what would be considered a horrific infant mortality rate. They're competing against a nearby tribe for resources. Which tribe ends up existing into the next generation, and the generation after that? The tribe with the well balanced leader, with great work life balance, little ego, who wants peace and harmony? Or the tribe with the leader who wants to annihilate all opposition, who demands obsessive devotion to no quarter. Who regularly calls out the manhood of members of the tribe when they're not sufficiently ruthless?

There is something very basic in us, cultivated over tens of thousands of years, that rewards the most ruthless among us. There is also something in the rest of us that recognizes that, and tends to want to team up with that kind of leader, because we feel like he has the best chance to win so we can pass down on genes to the next generation and the generation after that as well. 

If ruthlessness didn't serve some kind of real purpose, it would have ceased to exist long ago. The truth is, the ruthless among us tend to win, because they want it more, and they're willing to do things to accomplish victory the rest of us end up not having the appetite for. "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." "Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Being successful isn't all about being ruthless. It's about being able to identify talent, cultivate it, make it loyal. It's about having resilience. About making other people believe in you. But there are times when a certain sense of ruthlessness trumps other qualities. 

I would guess that every single one of the most successful football coaches in the history of the game had a certain amount of ruthlessness about him. John Wooden certainly did, who was mentioned above. 

Labels like sociopath, narcissist, etc. are helpful. But all of these are on a spectrum. Heck, dysfunction (I can't tell you how much it bothers me that's been misspelled twice now in this thread) is on a spectrum. I would argue by definition a successful head coach is not dysfunctional in a clinical sense of the word. These are qualities that have always existed, that modern psychology has now put a label on to make it more easily identifiable and analyzed. But all of these qualities contributed to the human race existing as the species it is right now, otherwise they would have died out. We too easily want to throw out these qualities as harmful or destructive, as if people who exhibit them should be erased from the gene pool, when that's not actually possible. 

If I'm in a contest where extinction is the penalty for losing, I will gladly take the most ruthless psychopath to be my leader. Better for the opponent to face extinction rather than me. At the end of the day, that instinct for survival is what we're tapping into with any confrontation or challenge. It may not seem like the outcome is of that kind of importance, but the person who is able to convince themselves on some level that what is in front of them is an existential threat has an edge on someone else who is not able to do that, all other things being equal. 

I don't want an Art Briles level of sociopathy to be the head coach at Texas. But I do want a certain amount of single mindedness that winning is critical for their job security and emotional well being. It's not the only quality that's important. But it is important. 

I like Steve Sarkisian as a person, at least what I see from him. But I do not need to. I need him to win at a very high level without embarrassing the university while doing so. There's the video out there of him screaming at the official, "Don't fucking touch me." It's probably my favorite Sarkisian clip. I also liked the psychopathic smile and snarky attitude he answered Kirk Bohls with when asked about red zone deficiencies in a recent press conference. Nice Guy Steve is fine, but I like a little asshole rolled in there, too. 

Which is not to say coaches shouldn't be judged for crossing lines. I was and am in favor of Chris Beard getting fired. I thought it was horse shit when Tom Herman hired Casey Horny on the staff. But there's a lot of behavior that many of us would classify as abusive that's meant to bring out the best in each individual player and the team as a whole. A lot of that is how the world actually works, particularly in highly competitive environments. 

Probably my favorite movie on this dynamic is Whiplash, because it shows the titular villain in the worst light, and then at the end of the movie it turns out the methods worked. Band of Brothers shows something similar. More than anything, we get the same behaviors and the same mindsets because they work. 

Do you post while drinking or after you get high?

Just curious

Edited by DFW Horn
"Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." - Vince Lombardi
Posted
25 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

So a paleolithic human tribe is scratching out an existence, foraging for food, killing wounded animals, following herds, with what would be considered a horrific infant mortality rate. They're competing against a nearby tribe for resources. Which tribe ends up existing into the next generation, and the generation after that? The tribe with the well balanced leader, with great work life balance, little ego, who wants peace and harmony? Or the tribe with the leader who wants to annihilate all opposition, who demands obsessive devotion to no quarter. Who regularly calls out the manhood of members of the tribe when they're not sufficiently ruthless?

There is something very basic in us, cultivated over tens of thousands of years, that rewards the most ruthless among us. There is also something in the rest of us that recognizes that, and tends to want to team up with that kind of leader, because we feel like he has the best chance to win so we can pass down on genes to the next generation and the generation after that as well. 

If ruthlessness didn't serve some kind of real purpose, it would have ceased to exist long ago. The truth is, the ruthless among us tend to win, because they want it more, and they're willing to do things to accomplish victory the rest of us end up not having the appetite for. "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." "Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Being successful isn't all about being ruthless. It's about being able to identify talent, cultivate it, make it loyal. It's about having resilience. About making other people believe in you. But there are times when a certain sense of ruthlessness trumps other qualities. 

I would guess that every single one of the most successful football coaches in the history of the game had a certain amount of ruthlessness about him. John Wooden certainly did, who was mentioned above. 

Labels like sociopath, narcissist, etc. are helpful. But all of these are on a spectrum. Heck, dysfunction (I can't tell you how much it bothers me that's been misspelled twice now in this thread) is on a spectrum. I would argue by definition a successful head coach is not dysfunctional in a clinical sense of the word. These are qualities that have always existed, that modern psychology has now put a label on to make it more easily identifiable and analyzed. But all of these qualities contributed to the human race existing as the species it is right now, otherwise they would have died out. We too easily want to throw out these qualities as harmful or destructive, as if people who exhibit them should be erased from the gene pool, when that's not actually possible. 

If I'm in a contest where extinction is the penalty for losing, I will gladly take the most ruthless psychopath to be my leader. Better for the opponent to face extinction rather than me. At the end of the day, that instinct for survival is what we're tapping into with any confrontation or challenge. It may not seem like the outcome is of that kind of importance, but the person who is able to convince themselves on some level that what is in front of them is an existential threat has an edge on someone else who is not able to do that, all other things being equal. 

I don't want an Art Briles level of sociopathy to be the head coach at Texas. But I do want a certain amount of single mindedness that winning is critical for their job security and emotional well being. It's not the only quality that's important. But it is important. 

I like Steve Sarkisian as a person, at least what I see from him. But I do not need to. I need him to win at a very high level without embarrassing the university while doing so. There's the video out there of him screaming at the official, "Don't fucking touch me." It's probably my favorite Sarkisian clip. I also liked the psychopathic smile and snarky attitude he answered Kirk Bohls with when asked about red zone deficiencies in a recent press conference. Nice Guy Steve is fine, but I like a little asshole rolled in there, too. 

Which is not to say coaches shouldn't be judged for crossing lines. I was and am in favor of Chris Beard getting fired. I thought it was horse shit when Tom Herman hired Casey Horny on the staff. But there's a lot of behavior that many of us would classify as abusive that's meant to bring out the best in each individual player and the team as a whole. A lot of that is how the world actually works, particularly in highly competitive environments. 

Probably my favorite movie on this dynamic is Whiplash, because it shows the titular villain in the worst light, and then at the end of the movie it turns out the methods worked. Band of Brothers shows something similar. More than anything, we get the same behaviors and the same mindsets because they work. 

tldrclooney.gif.c690a5a0cb4d679d13a580a6f8c1496b.gif

  • Haha 1
Posted
2 hours ago, RockyMountainHighHorn said:

I think Petrino is for sure a narcissist and has some very interesting traits. I have always been amazed that there are people somehow that like this guy. 

I've always thought that somewhere along the line, when becoming the winningest coach in college football history became plausible, that Paterno lost all perspective in pursuit of that goal. Sandusky either directly threatened that pursuit (e.g., in the 2000-2005 timeframe when Paterno looked like a spent force as a coach, a major scandal could have convinced Penn St. it was time to move on) or threatened to render it meaningless (which he largely did). So, Paterno simply looked the other way until he couldn't, at which point it was too late for his reputation. Tragic flaws, hubris--Greek mythology is full of that.

I could almost feel sorry for Joe, except that he was turning his back on kids being scarred for life. So, fuck him, and fuck his pointless record.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, SL Xpress said:

So a paleolithic human tribe is scratching out an existence, foraging for food, killing wounded animals, following herds, with what would be considered a horrific infant mortality rate. They're competing against a nearby tribe for resources. Which tribe ends up existing into the next generation, and the generation after that? The tribe with the well balanced leader, with great work life balance, little ego, who wants peace and harmony? Or the tribe with the leader who wants to annihilate all opposition, who demands obsessive devotion to no quarter. Who regularly calls out the manhood of members of the tribe when they're not sufficiently ruthless?

There is something very basic in us, cultivated over tens of thousands of years, that rewards the most ruthless among us. There is also something in the rest of us that recognizes that, and tends to want to team up with that kind of leader, because we feel like he has the best chance to win so we can pass down on genes to the next generation and the generation after that as well. 

If ruthlessness didn't serve some kind of real purpose, it would have ceased to exist long ago. The truth is, the ruthless among us tend to win, because they want it more, and they're willing to do things to accomplish victory the rest of us end up not having the appetite for. "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." "Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Being successful isn't all about being ruthless. It's about being able to identify talent, cultivate it, make it loyal. It's about having resilience. About making other people believe in you. But there are times when a certain sense of ruthlessness trumps other qualities. 

I would guess that every single one of the most successful football coaches in the history of the game had a certain amount of ruthlessness about him. John Wooden certainly did, who was mentioned above. 

Labels like sociopath, narcissist, etc. are helpful. But all of these are on a spectrum. Heck, dysfunction (I can't tell you how much it bothers me that's been misspelled twice now in this thread) is on a spectrum. I would argue by definition a successful head coach is not dysfunctional in a clinical sense of the word. These are qualities that have always existed, that modern psychology has now put a label on to make it more easily identifiable and analyzed. But all of these qualities contributed to the human race existing as the species it is right now, otherwise they would have died out. We too easily want to throw out these qualities as harmful or destructive, as if people who exhibit them should be erased from the gene pool, when that's not actually possible. 

If I'm in a contest where extinction is the penalty for losing, I will gladly take the most ruthless psychopath to be my leader. Better for the opponent to face extinction rather than me. At the end of the day, that instinct for survival is what we're tapping into with any confrontation or challenge. It may not seem like the outcome is of that kind of importance, but the person who is able to convince themselves on some level that what is in front of them is an existential threat has an edge on someone else who is not able to do that, all other things being equal. 

I don't want an Art Briles level of sociopathy to be the head coach at Texas. But I do want a certain amount of single mindedness that winning is critical for their job security and emotional well being. It's not the only quality that's important. But it is important. 

I like Steve Sarkisian as a person, at least what I see from him. But I do not need to. I need him to win at a very high level without embarrassing the university while doing so. There's the video out there of him screaming at the official, "Don't fucking touch me." It's probably my favorite Sarkisian clip. I also liked the psychopathic smile and snarky attitude he answered Kirk Bohls with when asked about red zone deficiencies in a recent press conference. Nice Guy Steve is fine, but I like a little asshole rolled in there, too. 

Which is not to say coaches shouldn't be judged for crossing lines. I was and am in favor of Chris Beard getting fired. I thought it was horse shit when Tom Herman hired Casey Horny on the staff. But there's a lot of behavior that many of us would classify as abusive that's meant to bring out the best in each individual player and the team as a whole. A lot of that is how the world actually works, particularly in highly competitive environments. 

Probably my favorite movie on this dynamic is Whiplash, because it shows the titular villain in the worst light, and then at the end of the movie it turns out the methods worked. Band of Brothers shows something similar. More than anything, we get the same behaviors and the same mindsets because they work. 

I was so sick of mediocrity, I was fine with going after Meyer. 
 
(Background: I heard that, in the 2013/2014 search, Jim Harbaugh was approached. His agent said that any suitor needed to know that it would take $10M annually- highest in the nation- to sign him, and Patterson bowed out. I was pissed, because it meant that Texas was still full of hubris, thinking there were a lot of coaches that could succeed here. In my opinion, the proper response to the demand should have been, “That’s do-able. Let’s talk”.)

I knew Meyer had a similar high demand. I was so encouraged when I heard that Meyer’s high demand was not a stopper for Texas. Finally, we were serious about this!

That didn’t work out. I wasn’t so enthused about Sark. The way I saw it-Saban was the gold standard, and Kirby Smart was his only assistant to recreate the magic elsewhere. I didn’t like Sark’s chances of being the second (I don’t count Fisher, who I see as more off Bowden’s tree than Saban’s). 
 
I am very happy to be wrong on this. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
22 minutes ago, statsman said:

I was so sick of mediocrity, I was fine with going after Meyer. 
 
(Background: I heard that, in the 2013/2014 search, Jim Harbaugh was approached. His agent said that any suitor needed to know that it would take $10M annually- highest in the nation- to sign him, and Patterson bowed out. I was pissed, because it meant that Texas was still full of hubris, thinking there were a lot of coaches that could succeed here. In my opinion, the proper response to the demand should have been, “That’s do-able. Let’s talk”.)

I knew Meyer had a similar high demand. I was so encouraged when I heard that Meyer’s high demand was not a stopper for Texas. Finally, we were serious about this!

That didn’t work out. I wasn’t so enthused about Sark. The way I saw it-Saban was the gold standard, and Kirby Smart was his only assistant to recreate the magic elsewhere. I didn’t like Sark’s chances of being the second (I don’t count Fisher, who I see as more off Bowden’s tree than Saban’s). 
 
I am very happy to be wrong on this. 

I didn't like hiring an assistant. His track record at Washington and USC was a little underwhelming.

The problem is, Dabo Swinney, Nick Saban, and Urban Meyer kind of sucked all the oxygen out of the room by dominating the national championship game. 

LSU money whipped Brian Kelly, and USC did the same with Lincoln Riley. I wanted Texas to do something similar, like what you're talking about with Jim Harbaugh. 

The first two seasons I questioned the approach of hiring Sarkisian. Now I look at my past self as a dumbass. It turns out it was a great hire at a great time. I love how Sarkisian has built his staff. I love the resources that have been put at his disposal. 

One of my favorite interviews of Sarkisian is where he goes through Carroll's and Saban's career at their stops and compares it to his journey at Texas. I'm pretty sure it was 3rd and Longhorn's interview with him. Anyway, I couldn't be more happy with where we are now. I know a lot of us feel that way. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
57 minutes ago, statsman said:

That didn’t work out. I wasn’t so enthused about Sark. The way I saw it-Saban was the gold standard, and Kirby Smart was his only assistant to recreate the magic elsewhere. I didn’t like Sark’s chances of being the second (I don’t count Fisher, who I see as more off Bowden’s tree than Saban’s). 
 
I am very happy to be wrong on this. 

Me too

The good news is we got Sark relatively cheap on the front end at $5M+ per year. I'm glad he's proven himself.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...