Low-pressure coaches vs. high-pressure coaches

December 14, 2012 11:37 AM

Many years ago (perhaps a decade or more), I read an interesting article that argued there were essentially two types of coaches in professional sports: low-pressure (perhaps someone like Phil Jackson) and high-pressure (say, Bill Parcells). Both styles had their positives and negatives, but the author went on to say that if a low-pressure coach failed, you never wanted to replace him with someone even lower-pressure, and vice-versa, since that would only exacerbate what had already gone wrong. It might have been in the New Yorker, but I really can't say. Ringing any bells? Thanks!
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

I don't know about the article, but Sport Science did an episode about this. They concluded that high-pressure is more effective over the long run, but perhaps there is a third category: Zen△Master coaching.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:52 PM on December 14, 2012

The first I heard of this was in the Bill James Baseball Abstract and he was talking about the cycles of Steinbrenner using Billy Martin to rage and somebody else to let off. His articles are paywalled but there are a lot of modern sports truisms that were first verbalized by James.
posted by bukvich at 6:24 PM on December 14, 2012