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Techno-crats in Goodwill chic

You can look back into athletic antiquity, and the professional dress of baseball managers and basketball and hockey coaches have not changed a whit. The
Frank Deford|
Techno-crats in Goodwill chic
Techno-crats in Goodwill chic

You can look back into athletic antiquity, and the professional dress of baseball managers and basketball and hockey coaches have not changed a whit. The baseball bosses still, as ever, garb themselves in uniforms, just like their players. On the court and by the rink, basketball and hockey coaches wear proper suits and ties, sport coats and slacks, no less than did their dignified predecessors all during the twentieth century. Of course, NBA coaches are the clothes horses of the profession. Indeed, these Beau Brummels have signed a deal to work only in custom attire designed by Joseph Abboud. But the larger point is: in baseball, basketball and hockey coaches honor their fathers, garment-wise.

But oh, not so on the gridiron. Football coaches today dress entirely different from their natty predecessors. Until, as best as I can tell, sometime in the 1980s, football coaches dressed like gentlemen, who appeared to be merely stopping off at the stadium on their way to church. Coats and ties, absolutely. Stylish camel-hair overcoats were favored when the weather turned chilly. And, oh the male millinery. I can still see Paul Brown in a snappy straw number. Bear Bryant in his perennial houndstooth. Tom Landry's little fedora that bordered on your pork-pie. These, my friends, were properly attired football coaches.

And then they all began to go to seed. The jackets went first, replaced by army-navy store style windbreakers. Next, the ties disappeared. And after that, the deluge: strictly casual Saturdays and Sundays. Can flip-flops be far behind? The NFL does mandate now that their tacky coaches wear special league-logo raiment, but that doesn't mean it's attractive just because it's being modeled. Oh my, never would I have imagined that I would have warm reveries of Weeb Ewbank or Vince Lombardi, strolling the sidelines as they would the boulevard. In fact, something of a nadir was reached last year, when Mike Nolan, the coach of the 49ers, had to actually petition the league in order to dress with dignity.

Unfortunately, clothes did not make the coach, Mr. Nolan was soon fired, suits and all, and the league coaching roster returned to all grunge all the time.

And, of course, the other way football coaches are so different from their stylish forebears is that they're wired. Try now, please, to picture Pop Warner or Knute Rockne or Papa George Halas with headphones. It sort of takes all the mystery out of coaching, doesn't it, when these modern Xs-and-Os Einsteins remind you foremost of teen-agers walking down the street with iPods?

No, give me a man's man in a tweed jacket and a rep tie and a snap brim, holding nothing more than a rolled-up program in his hand, prowling the sidelines, unattached to any supporting wires. That was a football coach. Now we have techno-crats in Goodwill chic. If only Ralph Lauren had called his line Pigskin instead of Polo, we surely wouldn't be in this sad state.

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Frank Deford
FRANK DEFORD

Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. His work has appeared in virtually every medium, including print, where he has written eloquently for Sports Illustrated since 1962. Deford is currently the magazine's Senior Contributing Writer and contributes a weekly column to SI.com. Deford can be heard as a commentator each week on Morning Edition. On television he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. He is the author of 15 books, and his latest,The Enitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007 to exceptional reviews. He and Red Smith are the only writers with multiple features in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. Editor David Halberstam selected Deford's 1981 Sports Illustrated profile on Bobby Knight (The Rabbit Hunter) and his 1985 SI profile of boxer Billy Conn (The Boxer and the Blonde) for that prestigious anthology. For Deford the comparison is meaningful. "Red Smith was the finest columnist, and I mean not just sports columnist," Deford told Powell's Books in 2007. "I've always said that Red is like Vermeer, with those tiny, priceless pieces. Five hundred words, perfectly chosen, crafted. Best literary columnist, in any newspaper, that I've ever seen." Deford was elected to the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Six times at Sports Illustrated Deford was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of The Year. The American Journalism Review has likewise cited him as the nation's finest sportswriter, and twice he was voted Magazine Writer of The Year by the Washington Journalism Review. Deford has also been presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles; a Christopher Award; and journalism honor awards from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University; and he has received many honorary degrees. The Sporting News has described Deford as "the most influential sports voice among members of the print media," and the magazine GQ has called him, simply, "The world's greatest sportswriter." In broadcast, Deford has won a Cable Ace award, an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award for his television work. In 2005 ESPN presented a television biography of Deford's life and work, You Write Better Than You Play. Deford has spoken at well over a hundred colleges, as well as at forums, conventions and on cruise ships around the world. He served as the editor-in-chief of The National Sports Daily in its brief but celebrated existence. Deford also wrote Sports Illustrated's first Point After column, in 1986. Two of Deford's books, the novel, Everybody's All-American, and Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, have been made into movies. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed. For 16 years Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and he remains chairman emeritus. He resides in Westport, CT, with his wife, Carol. They have two grown children – a son, Christian, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught American Studies.

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