Recently I read War as They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest and Coach: The Life of Paul “Bear” Bryant. The books chronicled three iconic college football coaches during a time when their profession and the world around them were evolving at breakneck speed. The first book is about the Hundred Yard War and how the coaches reacted to each other and unrest on their respective campuses; the second book focuses on Bear Bryant’s life, especially his time in Tuscaloosa.
Thomas Kuhn, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions talks about how a paradigm – a set of rules and structures – can limit those who make use of it. When scientists encounter information outside their paradigm, they are likely to modify it to suit their needs or ignore it outright.
Hayes, Schembechler, and Bryant coached for many seasons and developed their own philosophies and paradigms regarding coaching. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, players changed along with football strategy. Hayes continued to manage his team with an iron fist while emphasizing defence and the running game, but Schembechler and Bryant kept an open mind an adapted themselves to the new situation. Both the Michigan and Alabama loosened team discipline and made use of new offensive strategies to remain relevant.
All three of the coaches made mistakes earlier in their careers by overtraining their teams prior to critical bowl games – which they lost as a result of fatigue – but Schembecher and Bryant were more perceptive and less likely to repeat their mistakes like Hayes did over the years. At the end of War As They Knew It (and his career), the Ohio State coach was left wondering what was wrong with his campus and his country but his counterparts at Michigan and Alabama were more likely to look inwards and change themselves to keep pace.
All three coaches intimidated their assistant coaches over the years and used their stature as a way to bully younger staff members. Bear Bryant had the right idea about making up his staff, saying: “A lot of coaches are guilty of surrounding themselves with the same old same old. But I never hire a coach unless he knows something about the game that I don’t.” Towards the end of his career, Bryant would delegate a great deal to staff members, partially because of his failing health but also because he trusted his assistants immensely. Hayes may have let his standards slide during his last few years in Columbus but Bryant never did. Throughout his tenure, coaches and players alike dreaded the ominous clanking of the head coach’s tower, meaning that he was coming down from his observation post to give someone a tongue lashing.