Greatest coaches in all of sports

[#UnleashSean]

No doubt he is in the team picture of GOATs but to stand alone, he needs to win without Brady.

Patriots cruised with a third string quarterback and without gronk

[JWags85]

Patriots cruised with a third string quarterback and without gronk

Right, call me a Brady hater, but I think Brady is more the creation of Belichick and not the other way around.  His system is incredible and makes everyone good.  I dislike them both, but QB for QB, I think Rodgers is better.  In fact, I think there are about 4-5 QBs over the last 10-20 years who win like Brady has if they had that system and that continuity (Brees, Rodgers, P Manning recently)

[wadesworld]

Right, call me a Brady hater, but I think Brady is more the creation of Belichick and not the other way around.  His system is incredible and makes everyone good.  I dislike them both, but QB for QB, I think Rodgers is better.  In fact, I think there are about 4-5 QBs over the last 10-20 years who win like Brady has if they had that system and that continuity (Brees, Rodgers, P Manning recently)

I think they are both as good as advertised.  Both the GOAT in their position/sport.  It'd be like saying Phil Jackson is only good because of MJ or MJ is only good because of Phil.  No, they both made each other better, but they are both incredible at what they do regardless of the other.

[Sheriff]

George Halas

[Sheriff]

Red Auerbach

[🏀]

George Halas

Not even top 5 in the NFL, let alone all sports.

[Benny B]

Perhaps Brooks did the single greatest coaching job over the course of one "season" but greatest coach of all time? Nope.

Sounds like a fair compromise.

[dgies9156]

Tony LaRussa, Whitey Herzog.

I hate Bobby Knight but he's deserving.

[MerrittsMustache]

Not even top 5 in the NFL, let alone all sports.

He's got more wins and as many championships as Lombardi. Who are your top 5?

[Sheriff]

Not even top 5 in the NFL, let alone all sports.

Where are you coming from?  Halas has the most NFL championships (6).  Second to only Shula in wins.  He founded and kept the league alive to the TV era.  Without him there would be no NFL, Lombardi, Belichick, Super Bowl, Monday Night Football...

[🏀]

Shula, Lombardi, Walsh, Belicheck are guys on their own level.

Brown, Knoll, Landry, Halas and Halas are next up.

[MU82]

Well done, 82... you at least get consolation prize for putting the winner in honorable mention.


I'm sorry, but it's not even close; Herb Brooks is the greatest coach in all of sports of all time not simply by virtue of being the head coach of the team that provided the world with, unequivocally, the greatest moment in sports history, but by virtue of how he assembled and coached a team that did what nobody - with exception of 20 guys in a Lake Placid locker room - thought he ever could.

Let's set aside the Cold War, fallout shelters, the Cuban Missile Crisis and War Games starring Matthew Broderick for a moment... Prior to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, Soviet players were not allowed in the NHL, and the best of the best were selected for the ultra-elite Soviet National team (SNT) who competed internationally.  In other words, the Soviet hockey team was - for all intents and purposes - an "amateur" team composed of professional-caliber players that had won 13 national and Olympic championships out of the 16 years leading up to the 1980 Olympics.  Moreover, they very well could have won several Stanley Cups in the 70's had they competed in the NHL... even including the lesser teams from the Soviet Union, seven Soviet teams (including the SNT) played a total of 18 series (98 games total) against NHL teams from 1976-1991, going 14-2-2 in series play and 55-33-10 overall.  To say the SNT was a Goliath on the hockey rink would be a laughable understatement.

Now, keep in mind that 1980 was before Olympic teams were assembled from NHL rosters; Herb didn't even have the best players in the country at his disposal for the US Olympic Team.  So he had to assemble a team of mostly college players, but even then, Herb didn't take the best players, he took the right players.  Ice hockey at the 1979 National Sports Festival (US Olympic team tryouts) was pretty much a farce; Herb already had his roster drawn up before he got to Colorado Springs.   Although Herb left several of the best players in the country behind (some opted to sign pro contracts instead, others were simply cut), but USA Hockey actually considered giving Herb the boot after he made a couple mind-boggling selections, the most confounding of which was the selection of the worst-performing goalie (by far) at the '79 NSF: this guy sporting a 73% save percentage and a goals-against-average of over 12 -- in baseball, this would pretty much be the equivalent of a 1:15 K/BB ratio and an ERA in the 20's -- yet not only did he made the team, he ended up being the starter in Lake Placid (Jim Craig).

Think about having to assemble a team from D-League players and having to go up against a team consisting of LeBron, Russell, Steph, DeMarcus, Durant, Hardin, etc.  Think about how badly you would be crushed.  Even if Phil Jackson assembled that D-League team, do you think he'd even have a chance?  And who out there of all the other coaches mentioned could have not only told this team they had a chance with a straight face but actually got them to believe it?  Because that's essentially what Herb did... and then he won.

Brooks wasn't an "honorable mention" pick. I just thought of him a little later.

You stated things unequivocally, but it's just your opinion, not fact.

I tend to agree it was one of the great feats in coaching, though. Those who like college hoops but not hockey would probably argue for Rollie doing just as good a job with Nova over Georgetown, but I tend to think beating the Big Red Machine with a bunch of college kids was bigger, yes.

[Sheriff]

In terms of records, accomplishments and impact on the game, Halas is top tier.

[🏀]

In terms of records, accomplishments and impact on the game, Halas is top tier.

Impact on the game means very little when you're discussing greatest coach. And I would hope a guy that coached for almost 50 seasons did well in the counting stats.

[brandx]

Shula, Lombardi, Walsh, Belicheck are guys on their own level.

Brown, Knoll, Landry, Halas and Halas are next up.

Sure is easy to be great when you have HOF QBs.

[Sheriff]

Impact on the game means very little when you're discussing greatest coach. And I would hope a guy that coached for almost 50 seasons did well in the counting stats.

In your opinion, anyway.

[jutaw22mu]

PAUL BROWN

[RJax55]

PAUL BROWN

Definitely, top 5 for sure. So ahead of his time. And, there's no way you can have Walsh ahead of Brown.

[Lennys Tap]

IMO in order to be considered one of the greatest of all time, you better be pretty squeaky clean.

That leaves out Belichick.

Squeaky clean leaves out everybody.

[warriorchick]

Squeaky clean leaves out everybody.

Pat Summit?  What has she done?

[brandx]

Excellent observation.

The X's and O's is the easy part for pro coaches. Ego-management is by far the biggest challenge, and some egos are harder to manage than others.

Michael Jordan was the best player in the world in 1984 and 1985 and 1986 and 1987 and 1988 and 1989, too. And yet Kevin Loughery, Stan Albeck and Doug Collins didn't get the Bulls anywhere near an NBA title - not even after Pippen, Grant and Cartwright joined Jordan and Paxson.

In the book he wrote in the '90s, Jackson talked about how he had to massage the egos.

Apparently it is easier to massage egos as a coach than as a GM.

[Eldon]

Phil also coached a team whose second and third best players were Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom to a title.  And look what happened to Kobe and Shaq in the end.  There's something to be said about someone who can manage egos, and keeping those two in check for as long as he was able to is a minor miracle.  Not many people in this world can do that.

Disagreed on Ted Thompson being more at fault than Mike McCarthy.  Ted has the Packers in position to compete for a title every year.  With no data to back it up, it seems like injuries derail real chances to truly threaten for a Super Bowl quite a bit for the Packers compared to other teams (like this year).  Sure, you could look at this year and say, "How can the Packers be so thin at DB?"  Well, you can't really predict that your top CB is going to go down for good with a concussion and your next 2 CBs, who both had really solid rookie years, are going to have nagging injuries that make them about 60% of the player they were the year before throughout the season.  And sure, you could say, "Well, that's what happened so make a move to shore it up!"  But who's out there to get?  Charles Woodson isn't getting any younger.  But the Seahawks collapse is 100% on McCarthy and not Ted.  Do the Packers beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl if they win that game?  Nobody knows.  But Mac is the only reason we didn't find out.

If you haven't, I'm telling you you need to watch "Do Your Job" from 2 years ago.  I think I posted a link to it on YouTube in the Super Bowl thread.  It is incredible.  For as great of a GM as Belichick is, I'm 100% convinced he's a better coach than he is a GM.  The preparation is beyond absurd.  It's a great documentary by NFL Films.

This is a good point--one that I think is often underappreciated and one that I often point out to Phil Jackson haters. 

And to be fair to your uncle Bill, I think he is great in this regard.  I mean the guy had a murderer on his team and was still able to coach him to be a successful tight end.  The guy had Randy "Straight Cash Homie" Moss singing praises about him...while Moss was on another team (Vikings)!.  Says a lot about how the players see the coach.  Whether he is an egregious cheater or only a mild cheater, it's clear that Belicheat's players respect the hell out of him.

[GGGG]

Apparently it is easier to massage egos as a coach than as a GM.

Jackson has always had excellent GMs to work with.  Jerry Krause deserves a better rep than he has and Jerry West is a freakin' legend.

[GoldenDieners32]

Al is the GOAT

[MU82]

Jackson has always had excellent GMs to work with.  Jerry Krause deserves a better rep than he has and Jerry West is a freakin' legend.

This is true, but there are multiple sides to every story.

Auerbach used to tout himself as being superior to Jackson because Red built the Celtics while Jackson simply coached the Bulls. However, Red got to coach the players he brought in while Phil had to coach whichever players Krause threw at him. Fortunately for Jackson, Krause was, as you say, a very good GM.

Krause deeply resented Jackson and the players getting 95% of the credit. Eventually, that resentment - along with the egos of Jackson, Jordan, Pippen, etc - led to a schism between Jackson and Krause. And that, in turn, led to Krause desperately wanting to get rid of Jackson and bring in his own bobo who would be indebted to him ... just as Phil once was indebted to Krause for being rescued from the CBA when nobody else would touch him. So Krause chased away Jackson, hired a thoroughly unprepared Floyd and convinced Reinsdorf to blow up the Bulls because he was certain he could rebuild the team quickly. Reinsdorf, who did not want to pony up the big money to keep the dynasty alive, was all too happy to blow it up.

And the Bulls have mostly disappointed ever since.

End of history lesson ... and back to the subject at hand:

Jackson was a hell of a coach. He knew how to work with assistants and delegate authority and, most importantly, he knew how to push the buttons of some of the most egotistical athletes in basketball history.