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As long as Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman works in college football, he’s going to be fighting one of the most insidious stereotypes in sports.
No, not because he’s one of the few Black head coaches at the Bowl Subdivision level. Not because he’s leading one of the game’s blue bloods at just 38 years old. And not because he’s widely considered the most handsome coach in a profession of people who perpetually look like they need more sleep and more salads.
No, the thing that will always be held against Freeman at Notre Dame is that he’s really, really nice.
Football fans are naturally suspicious of nice coaches. It doesn’t comport with the image of Bear Bryant stalking the sidelines with a scowl or Nick Saban blowing up into a rage whenever somebody around him screws up.
For a college football coach, being a relatively pleasant person who has normal human interactions, treats people with respect and doesn’t show anger publicly can be dangerous. Because whenever something goes wrong, the personality traits we value highly in real life get twisted into the reason why a team isn’t performing well. Is he not demanding enough? Is he trying to be too buddy-buddy with the players? Do they play poorly because they don’t fear him?
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman calls a timeout during his team’s 2023 game against Pittsburgh at Notre Dame Stadium.
These are, of course, completely unfair critiques. We don’t really see what goes on in any program outside of 12 Saturdays a year. We don’t know how Freeman or any coach interacts with his team behind closed doors.
But what we have are the results, and fans will always evaluate them through the prism of their assumptions.
That’s really problematic for Freeman because of what happened Saturday when Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois, 16-14.
“We’ve been here…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/notre-dames-inconsistency-marcus-freeman-100730073.html
Author : USA TODAY Sports
Publish date : 2024-09-08 10:07:30
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