What were you thinking?
That line is commonly heard in my house when my son Garrett and (more often than I care to admit) I do something that raises the ire of my wife, Jess.
Perhaps it’s that males tend to do things that involve more concentration than they believe is needed. With me, the mixing of various nutritional supplements that often leave behind a mess seems to get me in trouble. As for Garrett, his ability to throw all clothes, worn or not, into the hamper for washing seems to be his biggest weakness.
But our endless limits in performing simple tasks is not the subject of this missive. Instead it involves two Penn State coaches, both of them household names in their respective sports.
The first is a man I refer to as the ‘Great Uncut’: Russ Rose. I call him that because I am always saying one of these days he’s going to realize his true calling and pump iron and get ripped—and then look out world. The site of a shredded-to-ribbons, 220-pound Russ Rose on the sideline would send additional shock waves through the volleyball world. Naturally I have volunteered my talents for this journey.
Russ is one of the more enjoyable people I have ever run into. I know no matter what my problems are on that day, an encounter with Russ will mean I will laugh or smile at least once. He has also helped me with advice in tough times. I have wandered into his office to chit-chat about just about anything and found an answer, or the questions that will generate the answer.
The reason his teams perform is because there’s no doubt in the minds of his kids that he wants them to win. I think Russ has mastered the main aspect of coaching: getting the athlete to want to be as good as he or she can be.
As I told him mid-season, I saw his young ladies in the weight room and they train hard. Though I know little about the sport, I do know that people who train that way when no one is looking are going to shine when there are people looking. The only negative is some of them seemed to dislike the music chosen by coach Cunningham and me.
This may have been a more satisfying year to Russ than others, since his team came from behind. Throughout the season I have caught myself watching Russ as much as the match. Because of the nature of my job, which involves a lot of analysis, I am wondering what he is thinking.
Good or bad, it seems that while play is on, there is little change in his demeanor. I used to be amazed at my wife, Jess, who used to be coach of the Penn State woman’s gymnastics team, because no matter what happened on a routine, there was no visible change in her demeanor. But I could ask Jess after.
I will see something go wrong in a volleyball match, and look at Russ with no change in his facial expression and wonder when it happened. ‘Just what were you thinking?’
The other person in this article is Cael Sanderson. He is still young, and in a weight class where I believe you can wrestle at an older age. He obviously has conquered all that he need conquer as a wrestler, but I believe he is one of these guys who is still getting better. I don’t think he has peaked.
Anyhow, Jake Varner, one of the Nittany Lion Wrestling club members, a two-time national champ ranked second in USA freestyle at 211.5, was wrestling a Russian up in Troy, N.Y., a few weeks ago, and Cael was on the sideline.
And Jake, who is great, beat him handily. But I was watching Cael and wondering what he was thinking. We are talking about the greatest wrestler ever here, who arguably is better now, is still a young man and is watching all this.
It has to go through his mind that he can walk out there and eat up anyone in the world who dares to stand across from him. How can it not?
So just like I wonder how a certain situation in weather is going to turn out, I wonder about what would happen if he walked out there again. As a coach, he is awesome (like Russ), seeming to have the right way to work with someone to get the best out of themselves. When he wrestles someone he will push, but never punish, though he is obviously capable of that. But I watch all this and wonder, when Cael sees another match with someone who may be an opponent of ours in the next Olympics, ‘Just what were you thinking?’
After analyzing the whole situation, here is what I am thinking: These are two great coaches who affect a lot of people. That their teams do what they do is no accident, though I will always be in the stands wondering, “Just what are they thinking?”
