Another view of Stoops & fans
A friend of mine read my blog yesterday about Bob Stoops’ relationship with the fans, and how I thought Stoops’ message was clear, that the fans were outsiders. He had a different take, courtesy of his wife. Maybe Stoops’ message meant that the fans are actually insiders.
Follow along. Stoops spoke starkly to the fans last week. Called them out. Challenged their manhood (lumping all fans into the masculine mode). My friend’s wife figures that’s the way he treats his players, too. You think Stoops doesn’t coddle players in practice? You think Stoops doesn’t challenge their manhood? Perhaps Stoops was just coaching up the fans, the way he does his players.
I think it’s an interesting theory. One huge difference, of course. Stoops deals with his players in private, then talks about them in public. By definition, all of Stoops’ coaching of fans is in the public forum. So it’s a little bit of apples and oranges.
But the coaching-the-fans theory is absolutely fitting. That’s exactly what Stoops was doing. Motivating his constituency to perform the way he wanted the fans to perform. And you saw the results.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment