Coaches have ways to manage stress
Mike McCarthy was seated at a table surrounded by reporters during the recent NFL owners meetings in the Valley when the Green Bay Packers coach heard a question he didn’t like. After a short, dismissive answer, he chugged down some orange juice, sipped from a cup of coffee and chomped into a bagel.
And then there was this: “Uh, coach? How well do you manage stress?”
McCarthy looked up and pretended, we think, to snap.
“Do I look like I manage stress to you?” he asked.
Told that he at least looked comfortable, judging by his resort-casual attire featuring a bright coral-blue shirt, McCarthy shot back, “I’m faking it.”
Managing stress levels is no joking matter for NFL head coaches, many of whom often develop health-related issues during the course of a season and a career. The pressure to win has never been greater in professional football, which is why so many owners change coaches every other year.
When the stakes are that high, bad things can happen to a body if you’re not aware and prepared.
“I think we’re always trying to learn how to manage stress,” said McCarthy, 53, who has been coaching for 30 years, the last 12 of them with the Packers. “I’m definitely more educated on stress and the different types of it. I think you have to be.”
Health scares have forced numerous coaches into early retirement, including Gary Kubiak this past season. He walked away from the Broncos at age 55 following bouts with a complex migraine and other health issues. In 2013 while coaching the Texans, he suffered a mini-stroke and collapsed on the sideline during halftime of a game against the Colts.
“Sometimes the best decision an NFL coach can make is walking away,” said John Elway, the Broncos’ executive vice president of football operations and general manager.
Some coaches haven’t been so fortunate.
After leading Green Bay to a pair of Super Bowl victories and then taking over as coach of the Redskins, Vince Lombardi succumbed to colon cancer in 1970. He had complained for years about digestive problems, but refused to get treatment until it was too late. Don McCafferty guided the Colts to a victory in Super Bowl V. A year and a half later, after Week 5 in 1972, McCafferty was fired. He coached the Lions in 1973, but that offseason he suffered a heart attack and died in 1974 at the age of 53.
Heart problems and clogged arteries seem to be the biggest nemesis for NFL coaches. Mike Ditka, Dan Reeves, John Fox, Bill Parcells and Joe Gibbs dealt with it. Cardinals coach Bruce Arians was hospitalized twice last season after complaining about stomach pain and breathing problems.
“I’m too old not to listen to doctors anymore,” Arians, 64, said.
Arians’ good friend, Chuck Pagano, is head coach of the Colts. In 2012, as Pagano was fighting leukemia, Arians took over on an interim basis until Pagano was able to return. For his efforts, Arians was named NFL Coach of the Year.
Now that Arians has had his own share of health scares, Pagano said his buddy will be just fine if he continues to heed the advice of his wife.
“Chris, she’s a bulldog,” Pagano said. “His wife will be after his ass. She’ll make him do what he needs to do.”
Some coaches smartly don’t wait for a problem to arise before they act. Many of those interviewed by azcentral sports said they always try to eat right, get proper sleep, and leave the job at the office when they go home for the night.
“I have a balance in my life,” Titans coach Mike Mularkey said. “I get away. I spend time around my family. I get it. I know how to separate the two. It’s a little tougher during the season, but you’ve got to take your time . ... You’ve got to get away from it.”
Mularkey, 55, said he makes sure he tells his assistants to do the same thing. Back when he was an assistant in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Miami, Atlanta and Jacksonville, he said he often saw older peers worry about being seen leaving the team facility before the head coach did.
“That was never me, though,” he said. “I always just felt, ‘Hey, I’m going to do my job, I’m going to do it really well, and when I’m done, I’m done.’ Listen, your health is important. The work hours are already tough. You’ve just got to be careful how you go about it.”
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, 45, isn’t sure if he subscribes to that theory.
When asked how well he manages stress during the season, he said: “I don’t know that I do. I enjoy the things that are somewhat stressful about our business. Maybe I am just blessed that way. I have always enjoyed it.” So, you never get too tense? “I do,” Tomlin said, “but probably not in the ways that you are describing.”
The Colts’ Pagano said a key for him has been trying to “block out the noise” and to be able to “control what’s controllable.”
In addition to exercising and eating right, Pagano, 56, has a little trick up his sleeve.
“I’m big on naps,” he said. “I try to tell everybody, ‘Shut your door at 5 o’clock when the players are gone and put your feet up on your desk for at least 25 minutes.' Science and study say if you get 25 minutes and no longer, you’ll turn back on your creative mind and all those kind of things and you’ll come out of those 25 minutes feeling incredible.” What if you nap for a little bit longer? “Oh, that’s bad,” Pagano said. “If you go 30 minutes, you go 35, now you know you’re waking up and you’re going to be pissed off. You’re going to be in a bad mood, man.”
Maybe taking up a hobby might help an NFL coach to manage his stress.
“Hobbies?” asks Tomlin, the Steelers’ coach. “I don’t have any hobbies. Football is my hobby.”