Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/131896
murphy's Law dan murphy sembly Hall on Feb. 25, 1983, than any of the 902 wins he collected in his career. Earlier this year, Applebee's turned the chair-throwing incident into a cutesy Grumpy Old Men homage commercial with former Irish head coach Digger Phelps to hock half-price appetizers and drink specials. How's that for a bit of Americana? But ferocious, unstable coaches have an ugly side as well — one that has been all too evident in the news this year. Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice and athletics director Tim Pernetti both lost their jobs in April because Rice took his anger too far. Videos of Scarlet Knights' practices showed the coach firing basketballs at his players' heads and shouting homosexual epithets at them. A month later Seton Hall softball coach Paige Smith was called to the carpet for publicly shaming players that in extreme cases put spouses or schoolwork before the team. Tough love has long been a popular motivation tool among coaches of all sports at all levels. The great Herb Brooks got his 1980 gold medal hockey team to play with each other by making himself a common enemy they could all hate together. Irish head coach Lou Holtz was known to grab hold of his players' face masks on the sideline and strike the fear of God into young men twice his size. So what separates motivation from abuse? Homophobic slurs are clearly on one side of that line. A little redfaced rage feels safely on the other. In between lies a slippery slope in either direction. Are we getting too soft as a nation to appreciate a good butt whipping when we need one? Outrage is easy to manufacture on today's social media assembly line. Is that constant monitoring and commentary going to scare coaches away from demanding the most from their players moving forward? Or are we simply evolving toward a better understanding of how authority figures should behave? These questions aren't easy to answer without the benefit of hindsight. The solution seems to come more from intentions than actions themselves. Irish defensive coordinator Bob Diaco straddles the line between strict disciplinarian and someone for whom players love to work hard as well any coach on campus. He makes it as simple as possible for himself by asking one question about everything he does. "Is this positive for the players or not? If it's not, then don't do it. If it is, then do it," he said this spring. "That's who it's about. I'm here to serve the players for Notre Dame. That's what I enjoy doing. "When your compass is that compass, then a lot of decisions become easy." So coaches, by all means keep the fury coming. Keep supplying us with comedic fodder and genuine motivation. Just make sure that anger comes from a place of love. If you don't know the difference, you're in the wrong profession. ✦ Dan Murphy has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2011. He can be reached at dmurphy@blueandgold.com