Rex Ryan and the Rare Funny/Good Coach Combo
Though my fandom for this team has and never will approach the way I obsessed over the Expos, I confess to being a tad fired up about the New York Jets’ promising start this season.
In the first of my weekly hits on the Rotowire Fantasy Sports Hour with Chris Liss, Chris and I covered the inaugural slate of games for his must-read Beating The Book column and disagreed strongly on three of them. I happened to get two of those three right, but take no credit for that feat, since Chris is one of the best handicappers around and predicting Week 1 games is almost entirely guesswork.
One of those three games, though, was Jets at Texans, and I was all over the Jets as a road underdog. The Jets’ hire of Rex Ryan as coach, combined with the team’s impression job of talent collection of the defensive side of the ball, has me convinced that this team is going to look like a classic Ravens defense from back in the day – no surprise, since Ryan was the architect of those defenses. Combine the defense with precocious rookie QB Mark Sanchez (here again I show my bias, since I’m a USC guy), and I like the Jets’ chance to reel off a double-digit win season and crash the playoffs. Maybe even win the division.
As much as Facebook and Twitter have their own uses, nowhere do I consume more content and debate more sports, politics and other topics than on Google Reader. What started as a grudging join spurred by my buddy Dave (who also convinced me to join Twitter – @jonahkeri) became my go-to source for just about everything I read. So after reading this nasty/hilarious KSK post about Ryan, I started ranting about the Jets to my fellow Mafia members, only to be told to CTFD, since we’re just one game into the season.
Now for someone who’s cheered for the Expos and Jets his whole life, a 1-0 start is like winning 178 Super Bowls and 2841 World Series. But the larger point is this: The Jets now have a legitimately good coach who’s also a legitimately great source of comedy. How many other coaches in the major North American pro sports can say that? If you’re a coach that’s a source of hilarity, it’s almost always because you’re woefully incompetent, because your off-field antics and/or referee baiting are so extreme that they hinder what could otherwise be a pretty good team, or both.
With all that said, which coaches in the four major team sports qualify as both good at their job and extremely funny? My top nominees:
4 (tie) Rex Ryan/Andy Reid. I’ll let Bill Simmons explain why, in his always entertaining weekly picks column.
Rex Ryan has replaced Andy Reid as “The Coach You’d Least Want to See Coming Out of a Men’s Room If He’s Been In There For 5 Minutes or More.”
3 Mike D’Antoni. Ever seen D’Antoni argue with a referee? He has this incredulous smile on his face every single time, as if to say, “How is this even possible? Perhaps you were watching the cricket match, but surely you have not been watching this game.” Combine the facial expressions with D’Antoni’s Hall of Fame mustache and orange ties, and his record of success with the Suns (read Jack McCallum’s terrific book Seven Seconds Or Less) and you have a top-fiver, easy.
This clip of D’Antoni, a ref, and Phil Jackson pretty much sums it up.
2 Joe Torre. You can’t argue with four World Series, with a shot at a fifth this year. And you can’t argue with the most prolific nose-gold miner in professional sports either.
1 Gregg Popovich. Tremendously successful coach and GM. Biting, sarcastic sense of humor. Plus, I mean…look at this guy.
So, who ya got?
You’re right on the money about D’Antoni. McCallum’s 7SOL was a fantastic book, and it showed me just how much fun Mike D’Antoni really is. Too bad he’s stuck with the Knicks. And has no concept of defense.
love the list, especially Pop. I could watch the NBA playoffs just for his between-quarter interviews with Craig Sager. The level of scorn is so…satisfying.
Along those same lines, where’s Phil Jackson? The man has successfully turned the post-game press conference into a community college philosophy lecture. Always entertaining, always out of left field.
Phil Jackson, of course! Big-time fail by me.
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lost touch with hockey, because I’ve reconnected with the NBA, or what, but it seems much easier to find lots of NBA coaches who fit the bill, but impossible on the NHL front.
Mike Keenan is the only person in the NHL I think of who might qualify. I don’t think the humor there is intentional though.
Mike Leach is hysterical, and also very good.
Steve Spurrier used to be very good, but his acerbic wit has persisted, mostly.
I wasn’t including college coaches at first, but yeah, now we’ve got a gold mine with college football and hoops.
Jim Boeheim would be first one that comes to mind at that level. Obviously tons of success. Plus the guy’s *normal* facial expression makes it look like he’s been mortally wounded – never mind what he looks like when he actually protests a call.
On the hockey front, Penguins coach Dan Bylsma is sneaky funny. On the bench and even in general to the media, he’s pretty dull (just like every other NHL coach), but behind the scenes the players love him and his sense of humor. He takes the photoshops the guys at thepensblog.com do, and he prints them out and posts them in the clubhouse, for example.