I watched the sports world from afar this past weekend. Family events and obligations made my March Madness viewing much more casual than in years past.
Sometimes, that’s the best way to absorb a story that has more than a few layers. It allows you to see it through a “life” lens and not a “sports” lens.
I was on a plane watching Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo lay into his player. I had about 75 minutes left in the air. I wasn’t watching with anyone else to talk to about it. I had no internet to read the immediate reaction of sports personalities I admired or respected. I was in the rarest of all positions in 2019, I had no outside influences impacting my thoughts.
What I came away with was a better understanding of how we define “toughness” and where we still have a lot of work to do in making sure great coaches are really great leaders.
Izzo is indisputably a great coach. His actions last Thursday don’t change that. I’m not here looking out for the emotional health of MSU forward Aaron Henry. He’s a big boy, he can deal with the ear-beating that he got and still be a great player both at Michigan State and beyond.
But that thought is not mutually exclusive from the following statement, and buckle up grown-ups because you might not like this one: TOM IZZO ACTED LIKE A PETULANT CHILD, AND SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED.
The jury’s verdict has been read. There’s no more research to be done. Sports psychologists have dedicated years of research to the question of how to get players to respond to instruction. Unequivocally, screaming and berating have come back as ineffective and excessive. Just because a player CAN deal with the verbal tirades does not mean they SHOULD have to.
We consistently ask kids to “be prepared for the real world.” How often does your boss lunge at you and convulse as he/she screams at you? If someone caught that from multiple camera angles, your boss would be fired and the clip would go viral. It would be even worse if this was a boss yelling at an 18-year-old employee. If it was found out to be an unpaid intern (insert “amateurism” joke here), the whole world might crumble.
Coach Izzo wasn’t looking out for the player in that moment. He was looking out for what would make him feel better right then and then. Like a child who had his toy taken away, he started kicking and screaming.
I get we want to hold the player to a higher standard than to say he’s so delicate he can’t take a few choice words. But have we ever wondered why we don’t hold coaches to a higher standard than being complete and utter rage-monsters?
Izzo, on a scale from 1 to 10 regarding worst tirade I’ve ever seen, was about a 6. He’s just high-profile and well-respected, so he gets used as the example. I’ve seen coaches at every level give in to their primal tendency to start yelling when they don’t get their way. Their records or accolades do not justify the behavior.
I’m asking wether it is the most efficient use of energy and time. There’s been a lot of anecdotal “back in my day” stories passed around in response to this story. Just because your parents or coaches screamed at you, does not mean that’s the reason for your success. In fact, it probably made the path getting to where you are a lot rockier.
If coaches really wanted to teach kids life lessons, how’s this one: be dispassionate to adversity. We don’t control what life puts in front of us. We only get to control our response. Don’t get angry, that doesn’t help anything.
The world’s not going to end because someone got yelled at. Aaron Henry isn’t suffering from any post-traumatic stress on Monday. But the rush to defense of a grown man reddening his face when something goes wrong is laughable.
Tom Izzo doesn’t have the time mid-game to sit down and have one of those “I’m not mad, just disappointed” talks with a player who blows an assignment. But to pretend he didn’t go over the top hinders our progress in developing the next generation of great coaches, mentors, teachers, and parents.
– Jake Logli, SportsFan 1330