Staley: Be Fans, Not Coaches

[chuck.r]

The press-access interview her quotes came from. Her "be fans, not coaches" remarks occur about 3:50 in after a reporter's question regarding the team's poise:

 

[Orangutan]

What the heck would we talk about, the design of our next team scarf? Oh, BTW, those European fans now routinely require riot police in attendance.

What would we talk about? Let's see - analyzing opposing coaches press conference or newspaper quotes word-by-word, tearing down reporters who write negative things about wcbb, recruiting, who will replace Geno, next year's starting five, laughing at Tennessee's struggles, the aesthetic beauty of UConn basketball, the ugliness of basketball played by other teams.

Really, I think most of the major topics remain. I'm not saying no one should ever discuss tactics. I just think it's silly when fans lose one game and suddenly think they know better than the coach.

Sure, there is a police presence at European soccer matches. Just as there is a police presence at NFL games. A quietly escalating issue for NFL: Fan violence and how to contain it

 

[EricLA]

According to one of the hometown journalists, David Cloninger, "Wilson and Coates [were] being mugged under the rim for (many) no-calls, . . . and its defense was twisting Katie Lou Samuelson’s hair-bun into a sack of pretzels."
True? Partly? Were Gabby and Nepheesa beating up on their larger counterparts?

It was the other way around. SC was WAY more physical with UCONN than the other way around. Coates fouled every UCONN post player on almost every UCONN offensive possession and almost none of it was called.

 

[huskyd]

I love the idea that Gabby and Pheesa were roughing up SC's bigs. Neither UConn player is known for brute force but rather for finesse. If I could photo shop a picture, here's the one I'd use:

As for "bun twisting," better your HEAD bun than the other one.

 

[Adesmar123]

USC coach Dawn Staley to critics: ‘Be fans, don’t be coaches’

What would the Boneyard be like if we took Dawn's advice?

Staley earns $1M per year. She should understand that you also get some crap with your $M.

 

[BigBird]

The logic of this argument could be extended to, unless you've been a professional musician you can't critique a singers performance, or unless you've been a teacher you can't critique a teachers performance, or unless you've been a president you can't critique a presidents performance. I coach and I know that I get second guessed all the time by fans/parents who for the most part know a lot less about my sport than I do. I think it's part of the deal and it's pointless to complain about it. Also, while I have faith in my coaching abilities, I make my share of of mistakes over the course of a season. No matter how accomplished you are in any field it shouldn't shield you from criticism even if a good deal of it is unfounded.

All true. There is a reason the public is admitted to sports contests. We are interested in the sports, and we like to think and talk about them, though sometimes the thinking part is under-developed. As a form of entertainment, teams hold themselves up to public scrutiny and comment. What we have often wrestled with here on the BY is the reasonable limits of criticism and inspection. We agree that there are limits, we just don't uniformly delineate them.

 

[BobbyJ]

I have always had a bit of a problem parsing what Dawn is communicating and this interview is no different. Some of what she says are the usual platitudes. Some of it just a bit bewildering in an almost C Viv way. What she said initially about the UConn loss went by quick and sounded dismissive. Though I thought she was meaning to say we have to put it behind us, it came out smh. What she said about Coates, I give her props for that, but Coates has performed that way for 3 years - Dawn has to own that. Dawn's reference to the freshman guard and integrating two wings who had not played their system - upperclassmen - was a BS excuse . 25 games - there is no system confusion. She's been saying quite different things about her freshman PG for quite some time.

You're right, after 25 games how can there be system confusion? Outside of the high-low and offensive rebounds she doesn't have an offensive system.

 

[Charliebball]

There's a down side to having two dominant inside players like SC and Baylor..........it takes the right tactics to keep the offense from becoming too one dimensional..............it also takes the right kind of surrounding players.........Dawn has done a great job building the SC program........from an attendence standpoint SC must be number one or two in the country......... still, I'm not sure she is one of the best X's and O's coach out there, Brenda seems to make much better adjustments with her team when things aren't going well.......

 

[RockyMTblue2]

You're right, after 25 games how can there be system confusion? Outside of the high-low and offensive rebounds she doesn't have an offensive system.

Her secondary scheme is to see if in the first 12/15 seconds a guard can get to their high percentage shot unencumbered, within an offense still looking for the toss inside. That works well enough against inferior teams. Not so much "elsewhere."

 

[UcMiami]

Pretty innocuous comment from Staley and I agree that Geno has said the exact same thing on more than one occasion. She isn't talking about parents or fans trying to coach her players, she is talking about the difference between what happens in a 40 minute game and what the team and coaches deal with in a 18 hour week of practices. Geno has commented about fans wanting to see certain bench players getting more minutes with 'they have no clue about what the last week of practice showed ... x player has proved during that time that she isn't ready, and none of her teammates trust her, so why would I player her during a competitive game' - is that harsh enough for you?!
Specific to the UConn game, they certainly were competitive for 18 minutes playing the game plan she and her coaches devised, there was a two minute breakdown of concentration that lead to the 7 point run to close the first half and the rot began to set in. Could she have done better, maybe, but could her players have kept it together better, certainly. That last turnover was a four point swing and a huge lift, and a really bad mistake that had nothing to do with coaching.

 

[Florida Fan]

I agree, eebmg.

Probably, in his own way, reflecting the pressure an elite program is under, Geno has said practically the same. But not so directly, at least not that I recall. I don't think Dawn's statement is an effective formulation. It shows she's actually stressed. She could have joked that fans aren't happy and neither is she or her team. But telling fans how they should think and act and how coaching is far more difficult than they know can be taken as an indication that she's not really in complete control. She misspoke.

Can we guess that Dawn is taking some heat from one of this country's largest and enthusiastic fan bases? As has been said, Geno had more time to reach his championships, but those great SC/ PR pieces on her recruiting classes raised the stakes and increased the spotlight on the expectations.