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Published: Sunday, November 13, 2005
The high risk of coaching
Stress, long hours and pressure can create health issues
By John Sleeper
Herald columnist
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/11/13/100spo_sleeper001.cfm
It's difficult to comprehend how they survive the 18-hour days, the 100-hour weeks, the non-stop pressure, the lousy eating habits, the lack of exercise and their own Type-A personalities.
Today's game between the Seahawks and the Rams is a house party of coaching staffs all too well versed at the health hazards stress has in their profession.
Rams head coach Mike Martz is on indefinite leave because of endocarditis, a dangerous bacterial infection of the heart valves that may force him out of coaching altogether.
Martz's interim replacement, Joe Vitt, is on medication for high cholesterol. He says reports of him undergoing angioplasty this season were erroneous.
Seahawks defensive coordinator Ray Rhodes has not yet been cleared by doctors to return after his second stroke-like episode in three months.
Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren missed a mini-camp practice in June because of chest pains. He was advised to take steps to control his stress level - to which he responded to the attending physician: "Do you KNOW what I DO for a living?"
While there have been few empirical studies done on the effect that the coaching profession has on its brethren, an avalanche of anecdotal evidence asserts just how insidious it can be, in the form of hypertension, cardiac episodes and strokes.
"They are under a tremendous amount of stress, both from their internal standard and external pressures," said Dr. Ronald E. Smith, a sports psychologist who is the director of clinical training at the University of Washington psychology department. "These are very successful, very high-achievement-oriented individuals. When things are particularly not going well, it wears on them a great deal. Then there are the external pressures. Even at the high school level, we're getting a tremendous number of reports of coaches wanting to leave the coaching ranks because of pressure from parents, fans and administrators.
"You move to the elite college and professional levels and the microscope becomes even more so."
The Jobs Rated Almanac, a book that rates occupations in several categories, including stress levels, ranks coaching in the same stress range as air-traffic controllers, fire fighters, police officers and surgeons.
At the crux: There's a saying that the No. 1 job description for coaches is to make life miserable for the opposing coach that week. That leads to working days that often span from 6 a.m. to midnight. During the season, many coaches spend more than one night a week sleeping in their offices.
"You're trying to get every detail covered," says former Seahawks head coach Chuck Knox, who believes today's coaches have it tougher than he and his peers did. "They look at it like, we're going to outwork the other staff we're coaching against. It becomes a real grinder. The season's longer now, too. It takes you forever."
NFL coaches formerly could afford to take a month off, Knox said. No more.
"The draft was in the latter part of January," he said. "Now it's in April, so you use your coaches to go on the road and scout. The mini-camps seem to be endless. Then you get a couple days off and suddenly, bang, you're at training camp."
You'd think coaches would listen to their bodies following a health scare and accordingly slow down. You'd be wrong.
After his first stroke-like symptom, Rhodes, under strict guidelines from his physician, nevertheless stretched the restrictions to the breaking point.
Martz had complicated back surgery after last season and resumed his normal work schedule afterward, against doctors' advice. Hours before his Rams played the Seahawks in St. Louis this season, he was attached to an intravenous drip to combat endocarditis. That was the last game he coached.
Joe Gibbs, a diabetic, took 11 years off because of the mental and physical toll it took on him, even though his was a wildly successful stint that included winning three Super Bowls. He came back last season, only to undergo surgery in April to have a stent inserted into a heart artery. Back he came.
Six weeks after he underwent quadruple bypass, Dan Reeves coached the Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII. Bill Parcells admits to one bypass and four angioplasty procedures, yet he's coaching the Cowboys in one of the high-pressure markets in the NFL.
Both Reeves and Parcells say their health problems are, in part, because of the stress of their jobs.
Victims are legion. Dick Vermeil quit coaching at 46 because of "burnout," only to return 15 years later. Former Bengals coach Sam Wyche went for days without sleeping and eventually was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a serious, incurable heart condition that damages the heart's muscle tone and reduces its ability to pump blood to the rest of the body.
The equation, then, is a balance of the demands placed an individual coach, both physical and psychological, and the ways in which the coach copes with the demands - exercise, diet, etc. It also has to do with external support, such as family, other coaches and administration.
The extent to which any of us survives stress in our lives largely depends on us. It's no different with coaches, although it comes in a much grander, deadlier scale.
"I often marvel at coaches who often have very long careers and can cope with those pressures very successfully," Smith said. "But every once in a while, for some individuals, at some points in time, the pressures just become too much and the person can break down physically."
The high risk of coaching
Stress, long hours and pressure can create health issues
By John Sleeper
Herald columnist
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/11/13/100spo_sleeper001.cfm
It's difficult to comprehend how they survive the 18-hour days, the 100-hour weeks, the non-stop pressure, the lousy eating habits, the lack of exercise and their own Type-A personalities.
Today's game between the Seahawks and the Rams is a house party of coaching staffs all too well versed at the health hazards stress has in their profession.
Rams head coach Mike Martz is on indefinite leave because of endocarditis, a dangerous bacterial infection of the heart valves that may force him out of coaching altogether.
Martz's interim replacement, Joe Vitt, is on medication for high cholesterol. He says reports of him undergoing angioplasty this season were erroneous.
Seahawks defensive coordinator Ray Rhodes has not yet been cleared by doctors to return after his second stroke-like episode in three months.
Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren missed a mini-camp practice in June because of chest pains. He was advised to take steps to control his stress level - to which he responded to the attending physician: "Do you KNOW what I DO for a living?"
While there have been few empirical studies done on the effect that the coaching profession has on its brethren, an avalanche of anecdotal evidence asserts just how insidious it can be, in the form of hypertension, cardiac episodes and strokes.
"They are under a tremendous amount of stress, both from their internal standard and external pressures," said Dr. Ronald E. Smith, a sports psychologist who is the director of clinical training at the University of Washington psychology department. "These are very successful, very high-achievement-oriented individuals. When things are particularly not going well, it wears on them a great deal. Then there are the external pressures. Even at the high school level, we're getting a tremendous number of reports of coaches wanting to leave the coaching ranks because of pressure from parents, fans and administrators.
"You move to the elite college and professional levels and the microscope becomes even more so."
The Jobs Rated Almanac, a book that rates occupations in several categories, including stress levels, ranks coaching in the same stress range as air-traffic controllers, fire fighters, police officers and surgeons.
At the crux: There's a saying that the No. 1 job description for coaches is to make life miserable for the opposing coach that week. That leads to working days that often span from 6 a.m. to midnight. During the season, many coaches spend more than one night a week sleeping in their offices.
"You're trying to get every detail covered," says former Seahawks head coach Chuck Knox, who believes today's coaches have it tougher than he and his peers did. "They look at it like, we're going to outwork the other staff we're coaching against. It becomes a real grinder. The season's longer now, too. It takes you forever."
NFL coaches formerly could afford to take a month off, Knox said. No more.
"The draft was in the latter part of January," he said. "Now it's in April, so you use your coaches to go on the road and scout. The mini-camps seem to be endless. Then you get a couple days off and suddenly, bang, you're at training camp."
You'd think coaches would listen to their bodies following a health scare and accordingly slow down. You'd be wrong.
After his first stroke-like symptom, Rhodes, under strict guidelines from his physician, nevertheless stretched the restrictions to the breaking point.
Martz had complicated back surgery after last season and resumed his normal work schedule afterward, against doctors' advice. Hours before his Rams played the Seahawks in St. Louis this season, he was attached to an intravenous drip to combat endocarditis. That was the last game he coached.
Joe Gibbs, a diabetic, took 11 years off because of the mental and physical toll it took on him, even though his was a wildly successful stint that included winning three Super Bowls. He came back last season, only to undergo surgery in April to have a stent inserted into a heart artery. Back he came.
Six weeks after he underwent quadruple bypass, Dan Reeves coached the Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII. Bill Parcells admits to one bypass and four angioplasty procedures, yet he's coaching the Cowboys in one of the high-pressure markets in the NFL.
Both Reeves and Parcells say their health problems are, in part, because of the stress of their jobs.
Victims are legion. Dick Vermeil quit coaching at 46 because of "burnout," only to return 15 years later. Former Bengals coach Sam Wyche went for days without sleeping and eventually was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a serious, incurable heart condition that damages the heart's muscle tone and reduces its ability to pump blood to the rest of the body.
The equation, then, is a balance of the demands placed an individual coach, both physical and psychological, and the ways in which the coach copes with the demands - exercise, diet, etc. It also has to do with external support, such as family, other coaches and administration.
The extent to which any of us survives stress in our lives largely depends on us. It's no different with coaches, although it comes in a much grander, deadlier scale.
"I often marvel at coaches who often have very long careers and can cope with those pressures very successfully," Smith said. "But every once in a while, for some individuals, at some points in time, the pressures just become too much and the person can break down physically."