Sports

Does being a bit of an idiot help soccer coaches win?

I recently found myself in a conversation on this topic with some prominent college football coaches and professionals. To be clear before continuing, I used jerk in my title to keep it as clean as possible, but much more colorful language was used in our conversation.

The consensus, in this small sample, was that it is very difficult to win at the highest levels for a long time without it. Probably no other team sport other than rugby values ​​toughness more than soccer, so this is hardly surprising.

With soccer season upon us, I decided to do some more research. First I checked who coached the teams that won all the BCS playoff and college football championships. That list contained 12 coaches and the 17 most recent champions. I did an informal study contacting coaches and players who trained or played for these 12 coaches and asked them to rate the level of jerk in them from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest.

I went in expecting most to come with high averages, but what surprised me was that only one of the 12 scored below average 5. Not a single one of the remaining eleven coaches on the list scored lower than 8.25 and most scored 9. Although this is far from being a comprehensive study, these Numbers seem to back up the opinions of the coaches I had the original conversation with.

Interestingly, neither of the two coaches who won 7 of the 17 championships between them (covered here) were in the top 3 of these ratings. So maybe having too much of an idiot can change things?

I’m sure compelling data can be found to argue that having a good amount of jerk in you is not beneficial, but it seems that for every Joe Paterno (perceived as a good boy) there are many more John McKays and Paul Bear Bryants to be found. . Similarly, in the NFL there seem to be contradictions such as those perceived as good head coaches Marv Levy, Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil, but without research, perhaps there were more idiots in them than we publicly perceive? Sometimes idiots are like wolves in sheep’s clothing.

As one of the greatest pacifists of all time, John Lennon, said, “You have to be a bastard to do it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the greatest bastards in the world.” As I assumed before, maybe being too much of an idiot could turn things against your success as a soccer coach, but if Lennon was right, more is better for a musical act.

So who will win this year’s college football play-off? Nobody really knows, but my money is on a team whose coach is a bit of an idiot.

You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc

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