So many times the front page stories in the sports section involve the health of a team’s star player. For some athletes, every little detail immediately becomes front page news.
Vikings quarterback Brett Favre’s rotator cuff could have had a reality show by the time it healed last summer. Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Sam Bradford was hurt early in the season and questions about the time table for his return were updated nearly every week.
But sometimes, it appears that the focus on health needs to shift from the players to the coaches. On December 26, Urban Meyer, head coach of the University of Florida football program, announced he was resigning from his position due to health issues. While Meyer changed his plans to a leave of absence and said he expects to coach the Gators in 2010, it was revealed that he had been suffering heart problems and stress related ailments.
It was announced on January 19 that University of Connecticut men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun was taking a medical leave of absence for what his doctor called “temporary medical issues.” Calhoun is no stranger to ailments, as he has undergone treatments for prostate cancer and skin cancer in the past decade.
Meyer and Calhoun are just a small sample of coaches who all deal with the same thing on a daily basis: stress. With the bottom line being money these days, the pressure for coaches to win becomes higher than ever. Winning brings in money, and money is needed to support a program.
The lengths coaches, especially college ones, go in order to ensure that their teams will succeed are incredibly disproportionate to the health risks they submit themselves too, and half the time they aren’t given their due.
No matter the sport, the players cannot do everything on their own. There must be a strong presence guiding the team. While credit is often given to an individual based on his or her performance, that performance is only possible because of the coach.
The coach is responsible for motivating the players to give their best effort, no matter what the circumstances. The failures of players can always be traced back to the coach and performance is a direct reflection on the coach.
So give coaches credit. Meyer and Calhoun are not the only coaches out there with health problems, and it is not easy to see when coaches are in bad health. Their intense sacrifice needs to be appreciated by all outside observers, as these health scares show that coaches give up more than meets the eye to do their jobs.
Daniel Gallen can be reached for comment at [email protected].