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Pressure cooker
Rudy Tomjanovich is the latest on a growing list of coaches to
succumb to the stress and subsequent health issues brought on by their
profession.
By MARCIA C. SMITH
The Orange County Register
Sunday, February 13, 2005
LOS ANGELES. His voice was scratchy, his face ashen, and his blue eyes sunken
and buried beneath bags carrying the weight of a young but already too-stressful
Lakers season.
Everyone could see that Lakers coach Rudy Tomjanovich, 56, needed more than
better lighting, a nap and the All-Star break. The escalating demands of his
lucrative but high-pressure profession had taken a toll on his health, forcing
him to resign a week later on Feb.2.
"I went from being this energetic, pumped-up guy to all of a sudden being sapped
of a lot of energy," Tomjanovich said in a news conference, having stepped down
as Lakers coach after just 43 games with a 24-19 record.
Tomjanovich's resignation and recent events involving coaches signal the
dangerous tradeoff of an increasingly demanding, high-profile, high-stakes
profession at the expense of compromised health.
Coaches, particularly in the four major pro leagues and NCAA Division I football
and men's basketball, have long pushed themselves to exhaustion to stay off the
hot seat and avoid a pink slip.
Year-round schedules and 20-hour days have become the expected behaviors for
those under pressure to win, fill arenas, master salary caps or scholarship
limits and fulfill expectations of media and fans.
Coaches have a tendency to try to control all facets of their team, a no-win
situation that often leads to burnout.
"Much of the pressure is self-imposed because coaches are competitive and set
such high standards," said Nike basketball executive George Raveling, who
retired in 1994 as the USC men's basketball coach after a debilitating
automobile accident.
"The body can't take all of the stress. Some coaches ignore the body signals,
the proper diet, proper exercise and sleep until something has to give."
In the weeks surrounding the resignation of Tomjanovich, a cancer survivor and
recovering alcoholic, other coaches were forced to weigh their profession
against their health.
Rick Majerus, who posted a 422-147 coaching record and 15 postseason appearance
in 20 years at Marquette, Ball State and Utah, resigned as USC men's basketball
coach in December, just five days after accepting the job. Majerus, 56, whose
hearty appetite has led to weight problems and multiple heart bypass-operations,
didn't think his body could handle the strain of college coaching.
In January, Oregon State men's basketball coach Jay John, who has high blood
pressure, experienced chest pains and shortness of breath and needed to be taken
to the hospital during halftime of a game against Washington in Seattle.
Last Saturday, Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski felt dizzy and
lightheaded when he quickly rose from his chair during a timeout and fell to the
floor during the Blue Devils' game against Georgia Tech. At his wife's
insistence, Krzyzewski, 57, saw a doctor.
"I could totally identify with what happened to Krzyzewski because I can
remember at least four times when I was so tired, I got up too soon and them I
had to ease back into my chair or I was going to keel over," said Raveling, who
coached the Trojans (1987-1994) to four postseason appearances at the end of his
22-year career.
"If I knew then what I know now, I would have quit coaching five years sooner."
SCIENCE OF STRESS
Sports psychologist John Murray has worked with coaches and players on positive
ways to manage stress before it becomes too intense and overwhelming.
Murray explains the century-old origins of "stress" as the physical term
builders used to apply to the weight steel and concrete materials could bear
before a structure's collapse. Renowned psychologists Richard Lazarus and Susan
Folkman applied the stress theories to the broader physical, emotional mental
strains a lifestyle can have on the body in their 1984 "cognitive appraisal"
model.
"The goal is to manage stress effectively, solve problems, vent and have
catharsis," said Murray, who analyzes coaches' and athletes' stress thresholds
and coping abilities.
"The body is a pressure cooker, and you've got to get the stress out somewhere
or it can have harmful effects."
The pressures of coaching, like those of a salesman with quotas or a
high-ranking executive in a Fortune 500 company, are real.
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Coaches can improve both their health and their success rates when they manage
stress better!
"We are in a day and age when it's easier to fire five coaches than 53 players
for not meeting Super Bowl expectations," said Larry Kennan, executive director
of the NFL Coaches Association.
"As coaches, we live on a tightrope."
The pressures have driven coaches off the sidelines and into hospitals with
problems including ulcers, migraine headaches, aching backs, high blood pressure
and heart problems.
"We're killing ourselves," Hall of Fame NFL coach Mike Ditka once said of his
coaching contemporaries.
In the NFL's 16-game regular season, the buildup begins Monday and reaches a
crescendo with the Sunday game. John Madden buried himself in work while
coaching the Oakland Raiders, and Joe Gibbs was known for sleeping in his office
while coaching the Washington Redskins.
Add the season's demands to offseason minicamps, training camps, preseason
games, postseason and draft day preparation and it's evident why even the
mightiest legends tumble.
Ditka, who guided the Chicago Bears (1982-1992) to six NFC Central Division
titles and a victory in Super Bowl XX, suffered a midseason heart attack in
1988. He left coaching to become part owner of the Arena Football League's
Chicago Rush, an NFL television analyst and a national spokesman for "Tackling
Men's Health," a wellness program sponsored by the NFL and drugmaker
GlaxoSmithKline.
Three-time Super Bowl coach Dan Reeves failed a stress test during 1990 Denver
Broncos training camp and was taken to a hospital for an angioplasty. Eight
years later while coaching the Atlanta Falcons, he felt chest pain during a game
and later underwent a quadruple-bypass surgery.
An exhausted Bill Parcells pushed himself to coach the New York Jets into the
1998 AFC Championship Game. He begged off coaching the AFC Pro Bowl team after
doctors warned him about his clogged arteries that needed to be relieved with
heart bypass surgery.
"As coaches, we tend to worry more about the health and condition of our
athletes and forget about ourselves," Raveling said.
"When we're in the middle of everything, that's easy to do. Some coaches don't
even want a clock in their offices because they don't want to know how much they
are working."
Krzyzewski's collapse came nearly a decade after his health forced him to take a
break from coaching. In 1995, the legendary coach ignored doctors' advice and
returned to the sideline just 10 days after back surgery to coach the season
opener. He then sat out the season because of "exhaustion."
Former Sacramento Kings coach Jerry Reynolds, exhausted from poor sleep and
diet, collapsed during a 1988 game as he was protesting an official's call.
"It's a hard lifestyle when you think about all the travel, the late-night
games, coming home late and so hungry that you have to eat fast food and so
wound up you can't sleep," said former men's basketball coach Reggie Minton, the
deputy executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
"I know that life. I left it, and now we want to help coaches find the support
they need to manage a very demanding job."
A LITTLE HELP
As part of his duties with the NABC, Minton oversees the Coaches Support
Network, which helps pair stressed-out coaches with psychologists, performance
coaches and mentors.
He writes personal letters to coaches who have resigned, been fired or have
landed in the unemployment line. He helps them with contract issues, career
options, financial planning and health and fitness.
"If coaches can find an outlet and build exercise or a break into their
routines, life will be easier," Minton said. "As we get older, our bodies can
keep on getting beat up."
According to Minton, Bobby Knight goes fishing to relieve stress. Majerus hopped
on the treadmill. Texas coach Rick Barnes and North Carolina's Roy Williams jog.
Krzyzewski plays tennis. Many coaches golf.
"Sometimes the stress is so intense that there comes to the point when they need
to find an outlet or they have to consider getting out ... of the profession,"
Minton said.
Dick Vermeil left his coaching post with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1982, citing
burnout.
Bill Walsh introduced the West Coast offense in his nine years (1979-1988) with
the San Francisco 49ers and said he would have coached longer and won more than
his three Super Bowls if the job weren't so rigorous.
In college basketball, mental and physical exhaustion drove Dick Bennett to
retire in 2000 as Wisconsin coach. Apparently recharged, Bennett returned as
coach at Washington State in 2003. Health concerns prompted Jerry Welsh to quit
as Iona coach in 1994 and UNLV coach Tim Grgurich to do the same in 1996.
The latest resignation in sports was that of Tomjanovich, who had accepted a
five-year, $30 million contract to be Phil Jackson's successor.
Like many before him, Rudy T just couldn't accept the hidden costs. He chose to
save his life.
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