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Called to coach Familiar faces can't resist the lure of that sideline rush
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Jack's take, give us yours. If you have a job that gives you a buzz (no, not that kind of buzz) that sometimes makes you feel like king of the world, that constantly excites and challenges you, then you are in the distinct minority of Americans who understand why coaches keep lifting themselves out of their armchairs and leaping back into the palpitation-inducing fray. The latest two are Marty Schottenheimer, who took the Washington Redskins head job, and Dick Vermeil, who apparently wants to take the Kansas City Chiefs job. The obvious reaction seems to be: Are these guys nuts? Schottenheimer is an emotional man who frequently wept during previous coaching gigs in Cleveland and Kansas City. He's giving up a cushy network broadcasting job and, further, he's walking into a snakepit of a situation with the Redskins franchise, owned as it is by a young nitwit with a large bank account and an itchy trigger finger. Vermeil's situation seems even stranger. Twenty years ago when I was covering him in Philadelphia we were all writing that he had run out of gas. He was perhaps the first of that sleep-in-the-office breed, a man who made coaching a 24-7 obsession, and by the time he had taken the once-lowly Eagles to the Super Bowl in 1981, Vermeil was a burnout. Everybody said he was nuts when he came back to take the St. Louis Rams job, and then he hung it up again (amid a flood of tears and a vow not to do a MacArthur) after taking that team to the promised land last season. But soon after the Chiefs poleaxed Gunther Cunningham, Vermeil's name surfaced as a candidate to replace him, and he was offered a three-year, $10 million contract. The Rams are holding up the deal, however, apparently over compensation. NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue will hold a hearing Tuesday morning in New York determine if Vermeil is contractually obligated to the Rams. "I'm stunned," said Rams president John Shaw, who is contesting the hiring (or at least seeking compensation from the Chiefs) since Vermeil is under contract to St. Louis for three more years. "The way he left, he said he was definitely done coaching and that he wanted to spend time with his family." Oh, brother. Anyone who still believes the ol' spend-time-with-the-family line believes Madonna and her latest will be together to celebrate their silver anniversary. Repeat after me: Almost no coach (or athlete for that matter) wants to spend more time with the family. For this reason: Because nothing in the coach's life, nothing he do will ever do will bring the same rush as coaching a pro franchise or a big-time college team. Nothing. I know this mostly from three decades of watching coaches, and I humbly submit that I also know it from a few years of coaching. I wasn't exactly Vermeil; hell, I wasn't even Mayo Smith. I managed a Little League team for one year and it almost drove my family and me nuts. I was up at midnight brainstorming practice drills and I was up at 5 a.m. juggling batting orders. I survived that ordeal and then coached basketball in a competitive eighth-grade league for several seasons. Seven years after my final game on the bench, I still replay one of my decisions that may have cost us a championship-game berth. Why did I pull it out and go into a stall with a five-point lead against East Side Youth Center? Huh? Tell me why, dammit! I remember what I taught my players, I remember a few good wins, I remember practices that ran more smoothly than a pair of $20 nylons, I remember kind words from parents. There is nothing like being a head coach. You are responsible for a dozen, or, in the case of football and baseball, a couple dozen lives. There is always something else to do, an opponent to scout, a play to modify, an athlete to motivate. You are part of a team; you depend on people but you are the boss. And this is to say nothing of the games, the adrenaline, facing the exquisite specter of success or failure, the heart-pounding process of making decisions under pressure. True, losing is absolutely horrible, no doubt about it. But a win will be along eventually, and the world will turn right again. Hey, open up the Clippers' job and watch candidates throw elbows to get to the front of the line. For guys like Schottenheimer and Vermeil -- solid pros, both of them, and, in the case of the 64-year-old Vermeil, an all-world motivator -- the emotions that even clipboard-carrying schlubs like me felt are multiplied a hundredfold. These guys coach at the highest level, and, well, there is the small issue of earning millions of dollars. But most don't do it for the money. Honest, they don't. They do it because nothing else they ever do will make them feel as alive as coaching a team. Is that sad? Perhaps in some cases. But it's a fact. The flip side of coaching is evident, of course, with the resignation of the Celtics' Rick Pitino. As good as he is -- and he's damn good -- the losses, the pressure, the perceived lack of effort by his players was too much for him. He burned out. He had to get away. He couldn't take it. Yeah? And this much I'm sure of: He'll be back. Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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