Snakeeyes007":15c8lbql said:
Some people attract more vitriol than most. Especially people who do things differently than the norm, and have success at it. "Ra Ra" Carroll is different, successfully so, and thus a lightning rod in this regard. That has been the case all the way back to his days with the Patriots and Jets. He collects all the blame, whether deserved or not.
-snip-
...Part of the reason Carroll is a lightning rod for so many is this: Most believe football is supposed to be a rugged man's sport, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, blood spilled, and both played and coached with a general disposition of 'mad at the world'. When someone behaves, talks, acts differently than the unspoken code of any group, they are assumed wrong. I was very skeptical of Carroll as well, and begrudgingly welcomed him as our new coach when hired. I didn't want what looked like a snake oil salesman for a coach/leader of our team.
Carroll exudes a lightness of being, throws the ball around with his guys, plays music during practices, talks about "our program", hugs, cheers, high-fives, laughs, and celebrates with his players and coaches. That kind of stuff was said to work with college 'kids', but not with real men. Not where the big boys and grown up play.
And lets face it, a guy that nice, with that much success, has to be doing something shady, right? How can a guy laugh and smile while he's kicking his opponent's asses up and down the field repeatedly?! He had to have cheated in college. He certainly cheated with our Seadderral Seahawks (sarcasm). We've read the stories of insinuation from NFL peers, talking heads, players, and fans alike.
Now that he's reached the pinnacle of the NFL, some have an immediate paradigm shift for the positive, some pause and wonder if he may actually be valid in his approach, and still others keep looking for the angle - assuming they're still missing how a guy like this is 'getting away with it'.
How does this apply to the original post one might ask? Whether consciously or unconsciously, many people tend to jump at any chance to attack one who makes them uncomfortable. That is how I read the brother's remarks. :les:
Great points.
I remember back in middle school & high school in the late 70's, the coaching icon was Vince Lombardi. (Or John Wooden, but unfortunately, I got the Lombardi-wannabe idiots).
Coaches copied Lombardi's emotionally abusive syntax (his demanding, seemingly-attacking drill sergeant manner, his "abusive" treatment of players) without understanding his *substance*. Lombardi was successful *despite* his abusive syntax, NOT *because* of it.
Carroll is successful because he has put in a lot of effort mining the minds of coaching greats like Bill Walsh, among others, and I suspect that John Wooden is somewhere very high on his list of coaching mentors as well.
Actually, when I Googled Pete Carroll/John Wooden, my guess was more on the money than I knew. The coaching soul of John Wooden lives on in Pete Carroll. Carroll has learned and channeled the *substance* of John Wooden, while consciously NOT copying Wooden's external syntax.
From:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/10/0 ... rylink=cpy
"When the Seahawks hired Carroll on Jan. 11, 2010, the label of “cheerleader” was used as a pejorative by skeptics convinced the rah-rah antics that worked so well at USC wouldn’t cut at the next level. An NFL coach who hugs and cajoles and jumps for joy? Who does that? Who’d ever done that? Not Vince Lombardi, certainly. Not George Halas. Not Tom Landry. Not Paul Brown. Not Joe Gibbs. Not Mike Ditka. Not Mike Holmgren."
From:
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/ ... med-career
Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, speaking for a June 3 piece in the Boston Globe, credited Wooden's book, "A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court," for helping to transform his career. Carroll told the Globe he read the book in 2000, after the New England Patriots had fired him and before USC had hired him.
"It hit me immediately that he had been a really successful coach before then, but once he got it all together and got it nailed, nobody could beat him," Carroll told the Globe. "It just struck me: 'I don’t have my act together like I need to.' And I knew if I had another opportunity, I wasn’t going to get another 16 years. I thought I’d already done this. I mean, I knew the importance of it. But then it hit me -- 'Nah, I really don’t know.' "
Carroll now seems to have it together in a Wooden-esque way. I'm sure other coaches will copy his syntax without understanding his substance. Pete is an original. He's the football version of John Wooden, with the organization-building savvy of Bill Walsh thrown in for good measure. And the cherry on top is Pete's own unique defensive mind and system and philosophy about how to play the game. Let the haters hate; Pete will just do what he does, and I see more Lombardis, the trophy kind, in the future.
