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The coaching game: /
More than X’s and Os
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PHOTO COURTESY UNC SPORTS INFORMATION
Football coach Carl Torbush (left) was named head coach after six players
recommended Torbush to athletic director Dick Baddour in December.
Player-coach relations
reach beyond sidelines
BY FORREST EBER
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR
When six North Carolina football
players approached UNC Director of
Athletics Dick Baddour in December
and told him that they wanted defensive
coordinator Carl Toibush to fill the head
coaching vacancy, they sent a message
to Toibush.
Not only did his players have faith in
his ability as a coach, but they also
respected and cared for him.
That message came as no surprise to
Torbush, who shares a bond with his
players that stretches far beyond the
boundaries of the football field.
“Probably my best evaluation of (the
relationship with his players) is when
they wanted me
for head coach,”
Torbush said.
“They told me
how much they
truly did respect
me and how much
they did love me.”
The close rela
tionship is nothing
new to student
athletes at UNC.
For almost twenty
years, some of
North Carolina’s
premier coaches
have been not only
building dynasties
on the playing
Field hockey player
CINDY WERUY
described coach
Karen Shelton as *a
coach on the field and
a friend off the field.'
field, but also friendships away from it.
Karen Shelton and Anson Dorrance
each took home their sport’s top prize
this fell, but to the coaches, the lives they
touch take precedence over wins and
losses.
After winning the ACC Field Hockey
Championship in November, Shelton
was praising the exploits of her players
when a reporter told her she seemed like
a proud mother talking about her chil
dren.
Spoken in jest at the time, the words
seem to ring true.
“It’s not so much like a mom,”
Shelton said later of her relationship
with her players. “But in a way it is
because they know I care about them
and I think that’s the biggest thing. I love
them and I think that I get that back
from them.”
Coaching carousel
Men's athletics at North Carolina
have undergone a facelift in the last
six months, in that span, the head
basketball football and baseball
coaches either announced retirement
or moved on to greener pastures.
The three coaches take with them a
combated 1,686 wins in 66 years of
coaching in Chapel Hill.
“... When you're driving
people to higher levels of
performance , there is still the
uncomfortable relationship
(between player and coach).”
ANSON DORRANCE
UNC women's soccer coach
But, the coaches understand that for
success, the love must be tempered with
discipline. And it is this point that makes
the relationship such a special one.
The recent Latrell Sprewell-P.J.
Carlesimo fight brought to light the frag
ile relationship that exists between a
player and a coach. Such a relationship
extends to the college scene.
College coaches spend more time
with their players than do the players'
parents during their school years. Asa
result, coaches must undertake the role
of parent. But as employees who draw
salaries from the University, they must
also play the role of coach.
With the responsibility of coaching
comes a responsibility for discipline.
And discipline often leads to strain in
the relationship.
“There’s still a distance (between the
players and coaches),” Dorrance said.
“Because when you’re driving people to
higher levels of performance, there is
still the uncomfortable relationship.”
Few people probably understand the
complex player-coach relationship bet
ter than Leslie Lyness. Lyness, a two
time field hockey All-American, won a
national championship as a player with
the Tar Heels in 1989.
Now a graduate student at UNC, she
roams the sidelines as one of Shelton’s
assistant coaches.
“(Shelton)’s got a great relationship
with (her players),” Lyness said. “She
respects them as people and as athletes.
It’s reciprocal the players respect her
as a coach and as a person.”
That may be the key to the relation
ship between player and coach: under
standing that each is also a person.
“She is a coach on the field and a
friend off the field,” UNC field hockey
player Cindy Werley said.
“We’re lucky to have her as a coach
and a friend.”
Aug. 27, 1997- After 20
years at the helm, baseball coach
Mike Roberts announces he wi
step down following fee 1998
season. Roberts held a 738-405-3
career record prior to fee start of
fee '9B campaign.
Winning not paramount just expected
BY KURT TONDORF
SENIOR WRITER
Dick Baddour wants every one of his coaches to be comfortable.
The North Carolina director of athletics knows that coaching can take its toll on
the men and women who run his 28 varsity sports programs. So since he
assumed his post in 1997, Baddour says he has continued his pre-
decessor John Swofford’s de-emphasis on winning at all
costs.
“We just don’t sit around and say, ‘This program did
this, and maybe they should be doing better, and
what were the shortcomings,’ and that sort of ,
thing,” Baddour says of the athletics department
“That doesn’t happen much. Doesn’t happen at
all.
“I think people would be amazed with
how little we talk about winning."
And yet UNC coaches, working in
such pressure-free environs, continue to i
win big. J
Since 1986, UNC athletics have m
captured a league-high 88 ACC titles ■
and 17 national championships. The
overall excellence of the program ]■ 1
earned North Carolina the 1993-94 H
Sears Directors’ Cup, awarded to the H
NCAA’s all-sports champion. j|
Despite the accolades, Baddour
insists he and his department care less
about winning than they do about their V
coaches’ ability to maintain their pro- B
grams’ integrity, the academic standing V
of their student-athletes and the positive t
nature of those athletes’ experiences. He
says the department never officially evalu
ates the performances of UNC coaches on a
year-to-year basis.
What, then, under this laissez-faire depart
ment policy, drives UNC coaches to bring home so much hard-
ware?
The trick has been to bring in coaches whose primary source of motivation has
always stared back at them in the mirror.
“We obviously all put pressure on ourselves,” says Karen Shelton, whose UNC
field hockey teams have won the last three national titles. “Winning is fun, it’s what
we all try to do.
LONGEVITY
FROM PAGE 1
at the helm of their respective programs. N.C. State’s
coaches have an average tenure of 12.1 years, and
every other school in the ACC averages fewer than 10.
Even UNC’s recent hires Torbush and men’s bas
ketball coach Bill Guthridge have at least 10 years
of assistant coaching experience
at North Carolina.
“We’ve got a very close fami
ly atmosphere (among coaches),”
Torbush says. “That’s because all
of them have been here the same
amount of time I have. The peo
ple I’ve known are the same peo
ple I’ve known for 10 years.”
Across the board, UNC’s
coaches and athletics officials
express immense satisfaction
with the state of sports at the
University. North Carolina has a
core of banner programs that
maintain the school’s mantle as
one of the winningest universities
in college sports. Women’s soccer
and field hockey won national
titles in 1997, and the basketball and football programs
are among the nation’s top 10.
North Carolina’s tradition is rooted in such success,
but the athletics department wants to project an image
that goes beyond wins and losses. UNC’s coaches
insist winning is secondary to graduating athletes and
bringing them to their potential on and off the field.
“We in athletics understand that athletics are a part
of the University, but it’s not paramount,” Baddour
Permanent address: Chapel Hill
Once a coach arrives at North Carolina, it's safe to unpack the suitcases and prepare for a long stay. UNC has more coaches
who have coached lOplus, 20plus and 30plus seasons at their school than any other athletic program in the ACC.
© © *
Clemson Duke FSU Ga. Tech Maryland UNC NCSU Virginia Wak
Head coaches 13 19 14 12 18 21 14 18 14
10+ years 3 863 6 12 745
20+ years 1 2 2 0 1 6 4 1 0
30+ years 0 000 01000
Average tenure 6.1 years 8.8 years 9.9 years 6.8 years 9.6 years 12.9 years 12.2 years 7.9 years 6.3 years
Oct. 9, 1997 Dean Smith retires
after % years as basketball coach:
assistant Bill Guthridge steps in.
FOCUS
winning at an t .
tter, and j , . 1 ■ HHgMBgL'.;
jA S J JH •
lome so much hard-
says. “It shouldn’t be.”
Many UNC coaches call
the department’s outlook
progressive. Yet progress is
uncertain, even with a
vision as clear as UNC’s
seems to be. For every coach
as successful and secure as
Dorrance, there is one
whose program does not
win as much or generate the
same number of headlines.
Consider Roberts, whose
departure as a coach
remains a mystery that nei
ther he nor Baddour will
explain to the public.
Roberts doesn’t know
what he’ll be doing this time
next year, though he hopes
he’ll be doing it at North
Carolina. Here is the ulti
mate loyalty, the underlying
thread that ties each of the
University’s coaches togeth
er: beyond the comfort and
v '
Athletic director
DICK BADDOUR
said the athletic
department doesn't
review each program’s
performance at fee
end of fee season.
flexibility afforded by the athletics department is a
belief in the brilliant tradition of UNC sports.
“You have to understand the shadow that all of us
coach under, and it’s Dean Smith,” Dorrance says.
“Every coach in this University has directly learned
about what’s important from him. ... He’s the one
who’s almost written a code for all of us. The thing
he’s created is a coaching community, because we all
feel, ironically, protected because he’s here.”
Smith created the model program while coaching at
“We work very hard to try and win all the games that we can. But that comes
from within. It doesn’t come from the administration.... I don’t feel any extra pres
sure.”
Of course, the administration has never found a reason to pressure Shelton, and
in her 17 years she has never provided one. She is a star in the UNC coaching ranks.
Her four national titles place her second among active UNC
coaches.
do it again and again, without fail. The pressure mounts, and not just from within
Baddour even admits to that.
“I think you do become a victim of your own success,” he says. “I don’t know if
victim is the right word. But the more you are successful, the higher the expectations
are not just from our supporters, but also internally.
“This institution there is always an expectation that we will do well.”
-- 1:
UTH/MICHAELXANAREK
Women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance (third from left) said former
basketball coach Dean Smith helped create a coaching community at UNC.
DC. 4*1997 - Football coach
Mack Brown, in his 10th year, steps
down and takes fee head coaching
position at Texas.
urn
Wednesday, February 11, 1998
UNC women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance
leads the pack with 15. He, too, says he feels
no pressure from his superiors to add to that
total.
“They give you the tools to be competi
tive,” he said. “And I love the freedom.”
But not every UNC coach is as successful
as Shelton and Dorrance. Others in the North
Carolina coaching fraternity feel although the
athletics department says it might not stress
winning as paramount, on-field success cer
tainly counts for something like job securi
ty-
Baseball coach Mike Roberts says, “I’ve
always felt like we’ve been encouraged that if
we had a good graduation rate and no NCAA
(violations) and were competitive in our sport,
that we could always count on continuing to
be employed.” (In August, following the first
losing season of his 21-year tenure at UNC,
Roberts announced he would step down after
the 1998 season.)
UNC football coach Carl Torbush
acknowledges that there are “two or three
things North Carolina values a lot more than
■ wins and losses.”
But in his next breath, Torbush says, “That
is the number one objective to win games.
Over a period of time, if you don’t win
enough, you need to look for another job."
Winning in itself is a catch-22 if you win
once, the understanding is that you’ll be able to
UNC, winning 879 games and two NCAA titles in 36
seasons. Smith teams won at least 20 games per season
for 27 straight years, an NCAA record.
In the process, he graduated 96 percent of his play
ers, and those men went on to become doctors,
lawyers, businessmen and politicians exactly the
kind of examples that make UNC’s programs shine.
Smith stayed at UNC for so long because the ath
letics department gave him the freedom and means to
run his program as he chose. Dorrance, Shelton and
others have stayed for similar reasons.
North Carolina provides ample oppor
tunity for drawing and keeping athletes:
an academically challenging school, an
attractive campus and town, good coach
es and a commitment to constantly
improving athletic facilities.
“Coaches here know they’re going to
work with outstanding people," Baddour
says. “You’re in the coaching business to
be around young people and enjoy that
association.”
Such an association is constantly
changing, and UNC’s coaches are
expected to change and improve with it.
For the most part, they seem up to the
task, resulting in an undying tradition of
success for North Carolina sports —and
a resolve by UNC’s coaches to perpetu
ate that success.
“Hopefully, you’re always evolving as
a coach,” Dorrance says. “TTiat happens
to anyone who has a commitment to
doing things properly. That’s certainly the
case with every coach that’s been here for
an extended period.”
D*c. 8, 1997-Carl
Torbush, who served as
defensive coordinator for
10 seasons under Brown,
is named head coach.
Torbush coaches fee Tar
Heels to a 42-3
victory against Virginia
Tech in fee Gator Bowl.
5