Why Steve Kerr is a Better Coach than Kyle Shanahan

"Kerr has won four championships as a coach. That's a hell of a lot of championships. He is an extraordinary coach and he deserved the extension. Shanahan didn't deserve it."

The two most high-profile head coaches in the Bay Area are Kyle Shanahan and Steve Kerr. The local media fawns over both of them almost equally and sees them as geniuses who have revolutionized their respective sport.

But one is a Champion, and one is not. Which means they're also quite different. My father, Lowell Cohn, has covered both Kerr and Shanahan and can explain the difference between them extremely well:

"First of all, Steve Kerr is a better coach than Kyle Shanahan. Another way of looking at it is Kerr recently got an extension for a lot of money, and Shanahan just got an extension. I vociferously object to Shanahan's extension. I applaud Kerr's extension.

"Kerr has won four championships as a coach. That's a hell of a lot of championships. He is an extraordinary coach and he deserved the extension.

"Shanahan didn't deserve it. He's done nothing to deserve an extension after three games. It's insane. He's never won anything. And don't say he has won NFC Championships. He has never won the Super Bowl. Kerr has won the Championship four times.

"Another thing -- the Warriors aren't that good anymore. The core players are getting older and they're trying to meld in younger players. Although the Warriors may not even make the playoffs, I think Kerr is doing a hell of a job this season. They're playing very well lately and they're making a push to get into the play-ins for the playoffs. Given the problems he'd had this season, this might be his best coaching job.

"So Kerr is a better coach in his sport than Shanahan is in his sport. And I'll tell you something else. I covered Kerr, and we were never particularly close. What I felt about him, he's really bright, he has a very whimsical sense of humor, he has great timing, he's wonderful with the media and he's someone the Warriors can be proud of the way he represents the franchise. He is ideal. He's normal. He can relate to normal people. And he always looks good and he's always prepared.

"Compare him to Shanahan. He's always wearing a hat. He looks like a teenager. I don't know if he can do a better job of representing the organization to the public, but he should. And Kerr does. And Kerr is a four-time Champion and Shanahan isn't."