BEHIND THE PLAY #32

As someone who coached teams for over twenty years, I’m aware of the impact that even one sentence can have on a player and a team. It’s an unscripted stage for the most part and, particularly if you’re working with kids, you need to be very mindful of what you’re saying and how it’s being said so you don’t create a negative, lasting impression on players.

These six things below were not accidental slips though. They were deliberate and several belong in the atrocities section of bad behaviour.

Obviously keeping any identifying details vague so people involved won’t be identified. They were all at elite levels of play. Because a lot of the people reading these newsletters are from the Vancouver area I will just add that none of these involved coaches from around here. Scores based on how funny (think dark humour) it is to me personally in retrospect and by how much of a dick move it was by the coach. I’ve left out my own ‘hairdryer treatment’ after getting a red card at a U19 CONCACAF qualifying tournament that I briefly mentioned in BTP #8. PG-13 Warning: a bit of swearing is involved in these.

Here we go…

1. We were at a tournament in Mexico and one of our players got a straight red near the end of the first half. Dressing room was silent at half time because we could see our coach was silently fuming. He was at the far end of the dressing room. I was sitting about halfway down the room with the coach to my right and the red card taker two to three players to my left. Eventually the coach confronted the player. “Did you kick that guy when he was on the ground?” The player considered his options, being very familiar with the coach’s anger issues. “Umm, ahh, I didn’t do nuthin.” He might as well have spray painted “I did it!” on the dressing room wall he was so unconvincing. The coach immediately ran at him, grabbing a tape shark from the physio table in the middle of the room as he gathered speed, malice and intent to injure.

   Fortunately, our trainer, a former Junior A hockey player, saw what was evolving and was ready. He executed a perfectly timed flying tackle on the coach almost right in front of me, intercepting him and holding him on the ground while he screamed obscenities at the player. Everyone on my side of the room had their backs plastered to the wall, stunned into silence. Eventually the coach regained his composure, dropped his weapon and we all went out for the second half… except of course for the guy who got the red card and nearly got assaulted with a weapon by his coach.

   [Comedy level: 4; Asshole level: 9]

2. Away game in Ottawa (I think). We’re having a light session as we just got into town. The mood is light and fun. A younger player who hadn’t been getting much playing time is buzzing and doing well. “Coach, you gotta start me. I’m on fire!” or words to that effect. The player had family in town and was really hoping to play. Some had come by the hotel earlier to see him, including his sister. Coach, without hesitation tells him the only way he’s playing is “if we can all have a go with your sister.” No lie. Easily the worst, most humiliating thing I’ve ever heard a coach say to a player and it was done in front of the whole team.

   [Comedy level: 0; Asshole level: 10]

3. Sweden. We’ve just arrived and are having a scrimmage to get our legs going. It’s cold and we’re not playing too well. The assistant coach has joined the game (probably to even up the teams) and has been vocal about how poor the standard is. Not too surprising as we’d had to take a bus from Switzerland all the way here due to an airport strike so we weren’t exactly fresh. So we’re playing and people are shouting as they would normally would. “Man on!” “Switch play!” etc. The assistant coach is also shouting but his is more critical, agitated, aggressive. It escalates and gradually becomes the focal point of the session. Then it erupts. People look over at him and slow down. He’s got into a spat with one of our teammates and is now chasing him (we’re 18-19 at the time) all over the field threatening violence. We’re all stopped now and it’s just him chasing our teammate, trying to chop him down from behind while screaming at him. Pure comedy for all of us except the guy ducking and weaving and trying not to get kicked to the ground. Eventually, unable to catch him, the coach stops, out of breath and calms down. Play continues. I never found out what precipitated this.

   [Comedy level: 8; Asshole level: 4]

4. I’m playing for UBC and we’re playing away to Lethbridge. Average score against Lethbridge at home in the five years I played at UBC was probably 7-0 but when we played on their lumpy field, carved into a hill that itself was part of a valley that mimicked a wind tunnel, we generally scraped by with a narrow win. Their coach at the time was an older Scottish guy who never shut up on the sidelines. Raging the whole game. Screaming instructions, arguing with the ref. He was wound up more than Bill Burr facing a heckler. On this particularly windy day we were clinging to a 1-0 lead well into the second half and he was off his head realizing they had a chance at something other than a loss against us for the first time. It was probably my third or fourth year playing so I knew what he was like and was fed up that we were having to battle for another narrow win against them on this field. His antics likely had me further pissed off. Play had stopped and he had sprung off his bench to scream at the ref. I was level with him about 20-30 yards from the sideline. Couldn’t stop myself. I turned my head towards him and said, “Why don’t you fucking shut up and sit down.” I then turned to face forward again and spat, realizing imediately this was not my finest moment. He was apoplectic and briefly stunned into silence but he quickly snapped out of it and started screaming at me. “Are you spitting at me!!!” followed by a series of non-compliments for me. He then yelled to get the attention of one of his players at the other end of the field. He yells at him to go play striker “and break his fooking leggg!!!” while pointing at me madly. Ref hears all this, does nothing. It was the 80’s.

   Now the running joke amongst us was that half the Lethbridge soccer team were guys who got cut from their hockey team. What some of these guys lacked in soccer ability they made up for in size, strength and aggression. Some definitely ran as if they were striding in skates with their arms going more across their body than back and forth. Meanwhile Oggie Oglethorpe makes his way up to me and says something like, “Coach says I gotta take you out.” Awesome. So that one is sort of on me as the instigator but having been born in Scotland I just found this guy embarrassing. We escaped with our win and Oggie really didn’t get a chance to do me. Don’t think his heart was really in it anyways. My memory is that their coach toned down his screaming the rest of the game so I’m taking that as another win on the day. [Comedy level: 3; Asshole level: 7]

5. It was about halfway through the season in Edmonton. We were struggling in the standings. Our player-coach had us doing something close to a full field scrimmage when a cross came in that he felt our veteran keeper should’ve come for but instead yelled for defenders to deal with. “And stop there.” Dramatic pause as he walked to a more central position on the field to address our keeper and waited for his audience to fall silent. “Why did you not come for that?” This was someone who thrived on being intimidating, both physically and mentally. The keeper stammered. The coach ridiculed him for it and asked him again, “Why are you not coming for that cross?” Silence. “Are you frightened? Are you scared to come for those because if you are just let me know.” Keeper is of course humiliated, which was the goal. Says he’s not frightened. Coach yells for us to play on. Keeper is on the bench for the next several games, replaced by our 18 year old, but very capable, back up keeper.

   [Comedy level: 0; Asshole level: 9]

6. The final squad had just been announced. Eighteen of us were leaving for a hugely important qualifying tournament in a day or two and we were at an evening team meeting in a university residence common room. The coach said his bit and then asked the assistant coach if he had anything to add. “Just one thing,” he said very calmly. “I just want to know if you’re prepared to have your leg broken for your country.” He then went around the room and asked every player to answer the question. In retrospect it was off the scales earnestness and, of course, weirdly inappropriate but it was designed to make us appreciate the gravity of what we were going into and bond us as a group. Far from the worst incident on this list. Was told he asked the same thing with another team a year or two later in a similar environment.

   [Comedy level: 5; Asshole level: 3]

This ended up being longer than I thought it would be so I’m going to keep the Q&A portion short.

No. I don’t like nationalism creeping into sports. I get it as it relates to international games but have never seen the need for it when two club teams from different countries play each other and definitely don’t see any need for it when two teams from the same country play domestically.

Next week, I’m going to tackle this one below and I suspect I will struggle to keep the answer short. It’s a really good one as it really touches on several issues that are important at the moment. Here’s the question and the Twitter thread its based on so you can read up ahead of time. :)