No, he's not a robot, which is precisely why he shouldn't be on auto pilot like he appeared to be last night. Someone with his leadership experience and responsibility should separate their internal emotional reaction from their external leadership behavior. His behavior should be intentional.
Perhaps at times, yelling is the best behavior to exhibit, but it appeared that he relied on it too much last night, and worse, that it was robotic, not thoughtful.
This principle is the same for leaders in any field, under any circumstances. Sports calls for a bit more spontaneity than many others, but that doesn't override the principle.
Nailed.
I played. Coached football and wrestling. In athletic administration, continue to coach. I've been around sports my whole life, and leadership in sport is an interest and vocation.
He should be frustrated. He should be demanding, he should hold his teammates accountable. He should hold himself to those same high standards.
IMHO what we saw from him Thursday night was not productive. I am sure it felt good at the time, but even he knew afterwards it was the wrong thing.
Greats like Lombardi (and BB) understand the psychology - they know when its time for a kick in the ass and when its time for a pat on the back. Often they are opposite of what feels right; the pat on the back is often more powerful when a player knows they've goofed up; the kick in the ass works best when they are riding too high, a push to continue to work harder, to get better.
I also train retrievers. You can't train a dog with anger or emotion. There's a time to be stern, and a time for praise. When you train with anger, however, you can break a dog, and a dog with no confidence is useless.
I don't care about being nice. I care about these young guys developing and contributing to this team; if they don't, another run at the Lombardi is not in the cards this year. Some of what we saw out of TB Thursday night was counterproductive to that goal IMHO. Understandable, yes. Acceptable?? Not to me.
Based on his comments post game, I am thinking TB is thinking similar.
On a side note (this has nothing to do with TB): There's a big difference between yelling and accountability. Too many who think they are "old school" and we are too "nice" mistake ******* (and counterproductive to the goal) behavior for accountability. Youth and high school sport (and to an extent college sport) is rife with ******* coaches and not enough who hold their players (and themselves) accountable. The two toughest coaches I played or worked with rarely if ever yelled, yet they held those around them to the highest standard. You didn't want to disappoint them because you feared them, but simply because you didn't want to let them down. There's a huge difference.
