English Accent = B License?

I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it sounds like we Michigan parents are a little bit more discerning when it comes to assessing a potential coach for our budding superstars. We don’t equate the coach’s accent with a license equivalent. Instead we use their accent to gage the character of the “man” we are getting.

For example, an English accent is a pretty sure sign that we can rely on the coach to adopt a superior, know-it-all attitude but never actually win anything – a little bit like the English men’s national team when you think about it.

On the other hand if we are looking for a coach who will be a role model for the kids in terms of demonstrating how to make a successful life in spite of being a 5’ 3” red head with mis-spelt tattoos and bad teeth, then we look for a Scottish accent. These guys are also great at teaching the kids how to fight with the linesman and can be relied on to try manfully, but unsuccessfully, to bed every mother on the team.

A fun loving coach with a constant bewildered look on his face is most likely to have a Irish lilt, and neatly arranged rows of color coordinated marker cones are usually the work of a German accented tutor. If I was looking for a coach who can stop the conversation dead in it’s tracks then I would seek one whose opening line is always “When I played back home in Iraq……”.

Finally of course, if I’m looking for someone who insists on being called “Coach” twenty years after he retires, who wouldn’t recognize ‘goalside’ if it sat on his face, and whose solution to every issue is to increase the amount of conditioning the kids do, then I’ll pick one with a nice, reassuring American accent.