Frank Martin can make all the You Tube videos to talk about sportsmanship, parents raising kids to play different sports and whatever else he chirps about but this guy is a lunatic. Also interesting to see Derek Kellogg as an assistant coach for UMass.
It is interesting, isn't it? It's like he has multiple personality disorder. I've watched him after a big NCAA tournament game, talk about how his players have done more for him than he could ever do for them, wiping away tears while waxxing about how
none of this is about basketball, or
wins and losses, but coaches and players coming together as people who love and support one another.
And then, a mere 48 hrs later, he's stomping at his players up and down the sideline, screaming at them, the refs, and anyone who will listen to pull their heads out of their collective asses!
I actually find myself liking the post-game, press conference Frank Martin, but I'd never want to play for him, or work alongside him. He has significant anger management issues, but he's not alone or unique.
Historically, coaching (you pick the sport) has rewarded this type of behavior. In most professions you start ranting and raving and the pink slip isn't far away. If you are an insuarance adjuster, you can't review a claim you disagree with, and leap up from your cubicle, and scream, "What the F*ck is going on here!!" while ripping your tie away from your neck.
"This is TOTAL bullshit!!" And then throw a chair across the room. Or grab a colleague by the neck with your hand.
But with coaching - at the HS, college or professional level - the ability to go totally bezerk has historically been deemed an
attractive quality by the people in charge. Not everyone went crazy. Wooden had so much talent he didn't have to. Same with Dean Smith, Terry Holland, Larranaga, or Bob McKillopp. Jay Wright never really ruffled his $5K suits. But the list of maniacs is a long one, headed by lots of familiar names -- Knight, Huggins, Gene Keady, Coach K, John Thompson, Izzo, the Hurley brothers, and lots of coaches we've never even noticed, or heard of.
These lunatics have all been paid vast amounts to go totally ape, but the approach, thankfully, is changing. Mainly, I suspect as a result of analytics. There's no reason to scream (fine to encourage players) when you grasp the numbers and recognize where your advantage lies. No better an example than Kyle Neptune in last year's A10 tourney, deciding that it advantaged his team to give XJ free reign to shoot all the threes he wanted. A cold, calculated move that paid off. I was at the game and he never raised his voice, or slammed his clipboard. He won, of course.
