Every so often, say once every twenty or thirty years, a great soccer manager (coach) emerges. By great I mean a coach who seems blessed with a talent to make a great team out of very little and make supposedly ordinary or forgotten players into something useful. The current example is a Portuguese , Jose Mourinho, who took a struggling, indifferent, side in Portugal, consisting of supposed no hopers, never-wases and raw youngsters to win local titles and then, miraculously, to beat all the best and richest sides in Europe to win the European championship. Yet his team , even at that point,still had no stars but it did have players who played as a star team and a manager who could make the proverbial silk purse out of a sow's ear.(Needless to say he was promptly hired by the richest club in Europe, with a limitless budget and the side now tops the league in England. His first step was to sell about half the squad of expensive first choice players, saying words to the effect that he needed a regular team of eleven players, not a squad of forty prima donnas)

What coaching miracle workers, the ones who can spot hidden talents, have great tactical skill, are great motivators and can hide weaknesses in players, are there or have there been in American sports ?
++++++++++++++++++++++
12-23-05, 04:37 AM
BobLaz
Fred-

One that comes to mind is former S.F. 49ers coach Bill Walsh--a brilliant offensive mind who was also a great talent evaluator..I truly think he got out of coaching because he saw the writing on the wall, i.e. the influx of undisciplined, greedy athletes that now infiltrate the playing fields..
Cool

12-24-05, 08:59 AM
juanruiz
Vince Lombardi, Bud Grant, Phil Jackson.

12-24-05, 10:49 AM
DorianGreyed
William "Red" Schmitt, Granite City HS Wrestling Coach, Dual Meet Record - 602 wins, 71 losses, 5 ties.

John Wooden, UCLA Basketball Coach, Record 885 wins, 203 losses, One of only three individuals enshrined in the Hall of Fame as a player and as a coach.
--------
The only reason Schmitty is ahead of Wooden is that Wooden got to recruit. Schmitty has to take whoever showed up, and some days, we didn't have enough to field a full team. Their coaching style was very much the same, with a very heavy concentration on the basics. Both viewed themselves as teachers who happened to coach. Both taught their students far more than merely a sport. Both are still loved by men they coached over 50 years ago. (And, Schmitty, I'm sorry we put your Volkswagen in the equipment room. It seemed funny at the time.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,