Worst Coach Ever
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Any coach – particularly one at the Pop Warner level – who runs a play like this ought to be ashamed.
48 Responses to “Worst Coach Ever”
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The views on this site are mine and mine alone, and do not reflect the views of my employer, Media Matters for America
© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Hey , guess what?
I agree!
Completely removed from the spirit of sportsmanship and fair play that is supposed to be taught in leagues like Pop Warner’s.
Please don’t bother calling me a hypocrite, or telling me what I REALLY mean.
The guy’s a bad coach, and a worse example.
lol! I think he just taught them all a valuable lesson: Never let your guard down. hahahaha
All things being equal, I agree that it wasn’t very sportsman-like.
However, one big exception: if the team on defense is some well-known regional powerhouse that is expected to crush the team on offense.
In that case, I’d say that a little “trickeration” on the opening play would be justifiable, possibly even smart. Put up some quick points, get your team pumped up, and try to get the other team off their game.
But, if that team on offense is known to be the better/more experienced team, than I’d say that running that play is even worse than it would be if both teams were relatively equal.
Just my opinion.
I wouldn’t say the “worst” coach, but definitely one that puts more interest in “winning” than learning the game, sportsmanship, and character development. However, if one of the other members had demolished that kid, then he would have REALLY looked like a jerk.
“The guy on the opposite sideline, whose kids don’t understand ‘play until you hear the whistle?’ He’s the worst coach in that clip.”
I have to agree here.
If I were the other coach, I would have shouted at my players than the ball was live and to tackle the QB.
I doubt they would have gotten that far, cause as soon as my players charged at him, he would have been forced to drop to one knee and take a down.
BULLSHIT!
Best. Coach. Ever.
Ball snapped, no whistle = live ball.
Interesting how the sides on this are playing out …
Fair play? Competition? Sportsmanship?
Screw that!
Win, and let the devil take the hindmost!
@frank – everything that happened was fair. It would be interesting to see if opinions on this correlate with actual football experience.
There are several versions of that play on YouTube with different teams, so apparently coaches don’t go on YouTube. I say the fault is the defensive coach for not knowing the rules and warning his team.
There are trick plays run by college teams on YouTube. In one case the offense huddled near the line but off to one side, and the center casually strolled over to the ball and lateraled it to the QB. There are also several hidden ball plays.
And the most famous gadget play of all time was Boise State in the Liberty Bowl, Statue of Liberty.
Frank DiSalle: “Interesting how the sides on this are playing out …
Fair play? Competition? Sportsmanship?
Screw that!
Win, and let the devil take the hindmost!”
First of all, did anyone cheat? Did anyone get physically hurt? No. All that happened was one side got caught napping.
Secondly. ‘… let the devil take the hindmost?’ Could you please be a little more dramatic?
It is precisely the point that while it is true that no rule was broken, and no one injured, the play’s success revolved around trickery: One team believing that the other side had a problem with the football; the other time practicing the art of deception, not football.
Frank DiSalle: “It is precisely the point that while it is true that no rule was broken, and no one injured, the play’s success revolved around trickery: One team believing that the other side had a problem with the football; the other time practicing the art of deception, not football.”
And the fake field goal attempt is also about deception.
The fact remains that they followed the rules and were able to catch the other team napping.
It’s a cheap play, and not one I would try more than once, but there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing unfair about it. There’s not non-competitive about it. Unsportsmanlike? I guess we have different definitions about that. But the rules say unsportsmanlike behavior involves taunting your opponent. That didn’t happen here.
But they are kids.
Unsportsmanlike? I guess we have different definitions about that.
No kidding.
“a problem with the football” …
What? Seriously. That really doesn’t even mean anything.
Yes, this was a cheap one, but the kids on the D side know the rules. Seriously, who stops playing before hearing the whistle?
The offense ran a cheesy play, no doubt. I learned something though- I’ll tell my players that if the ball moves, crunch the player who has it. That’s the only way to defend against trick plays – attention to detail or “eyes on the ball and watch for the snap”. The defensive coach (white jerseys) must’ve been kicking himself all day after that one.
I remember coaching young girls on a soccer team. I emphasized the rules, explained that a live ball was a live ball, and didn’t teach any trick plays to take advantage of that fact. In fact, it was unnerving to the opposing goalies that I was yelling to everyone that a ball the goalie had caught still live even when their goalie placed it on the ground, backed up, and then kicked it. Not a goal kick, just in regular play. I was proud of the time one of my players went in and challenged the ball, and the other coach didn’t complain since I (actually it was the girl) taught everyone on both sides a valuable lesson: the game is on until a whistle blows. I’ve also yelled that players stop when someone acts injured (sometimes the referees miss that.) I’m for fair play, so I yelled at my players when my goalies did that nonsense as well. Eventually they started throwing out the ball and play became much better.
Is that football play awful? Yes, it’s a trick. I’d think less of a coach that has his players do that, but I agree that the opposing coach (and players) better not let that happen again. Really, the only thing I’d flat out call wrong in all cases is the fake injury. If I see that being gamed (as I did see among 8-9 year old boys,) I want to kick the “injured” player myself. If I had been reffing, that kid would have had the rest of the game off.
Worst coach ever?
Hardly.
Like others are saying, the kids on the other team now know, very firmly, that you play until the whistle blows.
Trick play? Yes. Unsportsmanlike? No way.
That play was the height of unsportsmanship. I agree the opposing coach failed by his guys not playing to the whistle, but what the offensive coach is doing here is just wrong. There should be some kind of honor in the sport, and a shady play that’s technically legal is still not right. Using that kind of logic, aiming to hurt certain players would be okay, etc.
Would be interesting to know what the score was at this point.
Was offensive team up by 20 and running it up late in the game and so on. Just curious.
So where do you guys put pump-fakes, fake handoffs, reverses, linebackers who pretend to rush and then drop back into coverage, etc.? Each of those is designed to trick the opposing team.
How about Dan Marino faking a spike and then throwing a touchdown pass? Or the fumblerooski? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumblerooski) Or, for you Washington fans out there, any of the crazy Antwaan Randle El trick plays?
Trickery and deception are part of sports. Similar plays to this have been run at all levels of football since before anyone on this thread was born. If a coach can’t prepare his team for a decades-old trick, that’s his fault.
This is what is known as a “teaching moment;” the coach of the offensive team has pretty much guaranteed that nobody on either side will ever fall for something like this again in their football careers. Better to learn it now than at a level with higher stakes.
REf blew it, when the kid indicated that there was something wrong with the ball, the ref should have immediately blew the whistle making the play dead. I had the same thing tried on me many years ago and that is exactly what I did, I called the play back because I had blown the whistle and the ball was dead.
@olliver: Clearly you’ve never played football.
Me: “Unsportsmanlike? I guess we have different definitions about that.”
Frank DiSalle: “No kidding.”
And while I gave the definition of the term (taunting) I see you choose not to. Why is that?
“If I were the other coach, I would have shouted at my players than the ball was live and to tackle the QB. ”
It sounds like someone is shouting “HIT HIM!”
Awesome play. BS it’s bad sportsmenship. Competition is about brains as well as brawn. Trick plays are 100% OK.
Things that are unsportsmanlike: mocking, taunting, running up the score, not shaking your opponents hand after a contest.
Actually the interesting question is why didn’t the ref blow the whistle? Did the offensive coach let him know what was coming?
“Using that kind of logic, aiming to hurt certain players would be okay, etc.”
No because that is clearly against the rules.
I have watched professional baseball players pretend to throw the ball back after a play, then hide it and tag the runner when they step off the base. Same thing IMO and the fact that it works is the fault of the person who was tricked.
Football is all about deception and unsportsman like conduct. Heck, the first forward pass was illegal under the rules at the time it was developed. Probably why I’m a baseball fan.
“Using that kind of logic, aiming to hurt certain players would be okay, etc.”
That makes absolutely no sense at all.
“when the kid indicated that there was something wrong with the ball …”
It’s not clear that he did. Shaking the ball in the general direction of the sidelines hardly counts. Anything along that line should have been to the ref, not to his coach.
CS simply because unsportsmanlike is not limited to taunting.
To Jon and others. Fakes and other deceptive tricks are an attempt to misdirect — it looks this play but it is really that play. That is no the same as pretending there is a problem on the field.
Would a player faking an epileptic seizure, while a player runs down the field, qualify as unsportsmanlike ?
What next, firing a gun in the air?
Gotta disagree with you, Oliver. I’ve seen variations of that even at the pro level…just a savvy trick play that the other team wont be fooled by next time. Kudos to the kid for pulling it off! (Real Life Lesson Learned: Things don’t always happen the way you expect…)
Frank DiSalle: “CS simply because unsportsmanlike is not limited to taunting.”
Then define it.
“To Jon and others. Fakes and other deceptive tricks are an attempt to misdirect — it looks this play but it is really that play.”
Fine so far.
“That is no the same as pretending there is a problem on the field.”
Why not? I see this play as the same as pretending to hand the ball back to the picture and then tagging the runner at first base.
“Would a player faking an epileptic seizure, while a player runs down the field, qualify as unsportsmanlike ?”
If there’s an injury on the field before the plays starts, the play is dead. If you fake an injury, there are penalties for that.
“What next, firing a gun in the air?”
That’s illegal. And I don’t mean that’s against the rules of football. I mean there are criminal penalties for doing that.
So can you define unsportsmanlike conduct without resorting to slippery slope arguments.
CS: The term unsportsmanlike conduct in football that calls for a 15 yard penalty is pretty much as you describe it.
However, from water polo we get what I consider to be a better definition: When a player, coach or spectator refuses to play by the rules or acts in an unbecoming way that is not an ethical, fair, honorable individual, including deceit, disrespect or vulgarity.
I believe that it is in that definition, that you can find what Oliver is referring to.
Frank: “I believe that it is in that definition, that you can find what Oliver is referring to.”
Hallelujah! You actually gave a definition! That puts you a step up on J.G.Thayer, Sean D. Martin, Amused Observer.
Now how does this definition not include faked field goals as unsportsmanlike, but does include this play? I bet the first time a faked field goal was done and it resulted in a touchdown, the other side thought it was unsportsmanlike.
How does this definition not include the baseball play Fred described? I’ve seen a hockey player intentionally bounce a puck of the back of the goalie and into the net, from behind the net. Was that unsportsmanlike?
I was always amused by the basketball “bark like a dog” inbounds play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDZflfrfhdM
That’s a bitch move.
Do any of you folks have kids, do kids sports? Just so you remember, kids are not not adults. What is OK in college or professional realms may be completely out of bounds in kids sports. And since it’s the coach who did the play, it’s his tricking the other team, not the kids playing.
MobiusKlein: “What is OK in college or professional realms may be completely out of bounds in kids sports.”
This is an argument that makes sense. I don’t agree with it, but I will accept it as logically sound.
Kudos.
I played youth baseball for more than a dozen years. I had coaches who came up with tricky plays (run all the way to second after a walk if the other team lets their guard down) and was also on teams who were victimized by tricky plays (the hidden-ball trick, for instance). Both of these examples were from Little League, so 10-12 years old.
But you know what? Once a team had one of these plays run on them, they LEARNED from it. They learned that sports require concentration and that letting your guard down can have negative consequences both for yourself and for others who depend on you. Neither of the coaches above were particularly gung-ho about winning; rather they made the game more exciting by throwing a surprise into it.
I’m happy to have been on both sides of trick plays, and having encountered them, I was a smarter ballplayer as I got older (which happened to come in handy when my skills stopped advancing as quickly as my age).
If a pro pulled this off, I’d be impressed (mostly with the stupidity of the defense). It’d be cool if it were a bunch of guys playing flag football in somebody’s backyard. But coaching that play against little kids shows no class at all.
I have to say, people tend to discredit the game of american football as simply beeing a spot of big dudes pushing eachother around. Not true, football is all about trickery, deception and strategy.
To me that play is a perfect example of a coach calling a clever play (he didn’t make that one up, it’s been around for a while), and his boy executed it perfectly. They get an easy six points and the other team learned a valuble lesson that all football players need to learn at some point, play hard every down till the ref stops you.
This is only poor sportsmanship if the offending team already had a safe lead.
Man! Why the hateration on the trickeration? That was a legit play. Everyone gets one a year. One.
And since it’s the coach who did the play, it’s his tricking the other team, not the kids playing.
So what did we learn today, kids? It’s okay to be shady and cheat, and if you’re really lucky, you can grow up to be a NE Patriot.
Duros62 –
Exactly what part of this play was cheating? And, no, deception and trickery and chicanery and misdirection and what have you are NOT cheating.
Cheating is breaking the rules. If a rule was broken, why wasn’t the play called back and the offensive team penalized? Was the Dan Marino fake spike play cheating? Is the hidden-ball trick in baseball cheating? Is faking a basketball shot to cause the defender to jump in the air and then leaning into him as he comes down to draw a foul cheating?
As more than one commenter has noted, this will at least imprint on these young minds that you play until the whistle blows.
I do agree that if the team on offense was way ahead and it was late in the game that it was unsportsmanlike. But there is no way this is cheating.
If a rule was broken, why wasn’t the play called back and the offensive team penalized?
We don’t know that it wasn’t. The tape ends right after. If that sort of chicanery, deception and trickery is not cheating, well…it should be. Don’t seem right, that’s all. Especially with pop warner ball.
But I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know much about the foo’ball.
Center: “There’s something on the ball” (hands it to QB, not a regular snap).
QB: “Coach, Coach, We need to wipe it off.”
Coach: “Bring it here.”
QB: “We need to wipe it off.”
Coach: “Go.”
Wow, that coach sure is smarter than most 10 year olds.
Legal? yes
Good Sportsmanship? Never
Not that anyone will ever see it, but my “taking second base on a walk” story happened in MLB!
http://www.thefightins.com/meechone/marco-scutaro-catches-the-phillies-napping-steals-second-on-a-walk/