Coaches Are No Longer Holding Back, and I Believe More is to Come
Accountability Check
For the second time this week, an SEC women’s basketball coach has called out their respective team in a postgame press conference. Texas Longhorns coach Vic Schaefer questioned heart and toughness, and Kim Caldwell just called Tennessee quitters. Some feel that this is all on the coaches, and they are just throwing their teams under the bus. Others feel that this is just honest truth, and with the current era of NIL and college sports, it is warranted.
To start off the week, after the Lady Vols suffered their worst loss in program history to South Carolina, Caldwell had to say about her basketball team.
“We just had a lot of quit in us tonight, and that’s been something that’s been consistent with our team, is we’re not comfortable, and things don’t go our way, and I have a team that’ll just quit on you, and you can’t do that in big games, you can’t do that anytime in the SEC, but you certainly can’t do that at a program like this.”
It seems that the opinions on this style of criticism are split in popularity amongst the fans, and I am sure it’s a hard pill to swallow behind closed doors as well.
In this era of NIL and collegiate players making money legally while in college, coaches will do this more often now. This is not the days of old where the coach spoke in front of the press and sugarcoated things. Some may still do that, but the trend is telling me there will be more of the Caldwells and Schaefers going forward.
To the fairness of head coaches around the country, we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors at practice or off the court. I see the comments of “it starts at the top” and “they should say that to the team and not the world.”
I get both of those points, but how do you know that hasn’t been the case? I bet that whatever is said off the cameras to their players are heavier than what is said to media. Here was Coach Vic Schaefer’s continued response after the 86-70 loss to No. 5 Vanderbilt.
“I get to listen to too many people who think they know instead of just doing it my way. You know, if they’re not gonna get in a cold tub and get rehabbed, okay, then you’re gonna be tired the next day. If you’re not gonna get in cryo, then you’re gonna be tired.
But me taking it easy, me not practicing hard because somebody else does that or everybody else does that. I’ve never done that. Never, and my teams are always better in February and March always. But we’re not tough. We have no toughness. This team is as soft as, it’s the softest team I’ve ever had. They have no toughness.
Again, that’s what it translates from practice. My fault. My fault. So again, it’s a little, probably a little bit of both. And again, I’ll wear it no problem. My fault. I’ll wear all of it, but it’s going to stop now. I don’t want to hear, I’ve told my staff, I don’t wanna hear about anybody being tired, sore, whatever.
It’s time to go to work. That’s it. That’s how you fix that. You just go to work, but to sit around and, and think that it’s not this fault or this fault that, you know what? We all need to be accountable. When I say that again, I’ve had teams, all they got was a scholarship and they laid it on the line every night. I never had to coach their heart. Never! I’m out there coaching heart tonight, y’all! That ain’t it. Not at Texas.”
So, my question is what would you do as a coach in this situation? A lot of these old school coaches are fed up with the current state of college athletics anyway. Even some coaches that haven’t coached for 41 years are as well. Now that players have the opportunity to make money legally is where some of the limited patience stems from, in my opinion. Now, playing college sports is really looked at as having a job. You are no longer just playing on a scholarship as he mentioned.
Whether it is NIL or revenue share, when money is involved and players jump from this school to the next one and money is the first or only thing brought up, it sours the taste in a lot of these coaches’ mouths and gives them even more of a reason to call it how they see it. Then the question of heart comes.
We also have to know that coaches speak on what they see on a daily basis. This is not just about the game. Daily effort and the way they go about their business brings a lot of frustration, and the one thing that will make those frustrations come out publicly is getting embarrassed in a game.
The question is, how do you fix it? Cutting corners and not taking the time to do the things that are beneficial to your body and your game should absolutely be questioned. If you are not doing the little things right, it is going to show up on the court, and that is exactly what both of these coaches are pointing out.
There are always multiple ways to handle things, and the way these two decided to handle it may or may not be how you would. Of course, there is always two sides to it all. Would you rather have someone who sugarcoats things and leaves things unanswered, or someone that airs it all out there? You tell me.
