Who are these coaches? They are larger-than-life figures. They are flamboyant, bombastic, and egotistical and they exude charm and charisma. They overflow with emotion. They scream, they shout, they jump, they chew towels, they throw chairs, they excoriate the refs, and they rant at their players. They know how to win, however, and they get their players to buy into their creed, whether it is a match-up zone or a tough man-to-man defense.
Of the coaches in the finals, I liked John Calipari because of his behavior during the prelude to the final. Calipari is the coach of Memphis, a smooth talker who left frigid Massachusetts to go to the sunny South to assemble a champion team. Even though James Naismith, MD, invented basketball in the North, the South seems more suited to hardwood success.
One of the stars of Memphis was the center named Joey Dorsey. In some parlance, Dorsey would be called a strapping lad, but to the sportscasters he is a behemoth, a monster, a rock. At 6’9” and 265 pounds, he is all bulging and chiseled muscle. In the lingo of sports, his chest is big enough for a billboard. (My contribution to sports clichés: Dorsey is a mean mass of myoglobin.)
In the paint, Dorsey was a fearsome presence, a rebounding machine and ferocious shot blocker. When Dorsey swatted a shot, it rocketed into the upper deck like a cannon ball. Looking at Dorsey, I would have been afraid to drive against him even inside a Sherman tank. Nevertheless, during the UCLA game, Calipari pulled Dorsey to the sideline, got into his face, and fumed at him.
At a post-game interview, a reporter asked Calipari why he had berated Dorsey so mercilessly since Memphis was winning. Calipari replied, “I thought that he was a little bit timid. He’s a beast and there were times today that he was not a beast.”
Certainly fooled me. If the Dorsey I watched was timid, I would hate to see him when he is angry.
Sideline Bench to Bedside
We are now getting to medicine, which is an entirely different undertaking. In house staff training, if an intern or resident does not perform well, there is no equivalent of benching or choice words fulminated at the sidelines. Can you imagine the following exchange between a chief resident and an intern?
“Pisetsky, you’re stinking up the place tonight. You’re dragging out there and your last differential didn’t include vasculitis. You’re through tonight! I’m not letting you take another admission until your write-ups show more detail.”
