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Exiting Hawks coach as good with media as he was with his team
Published by Seahawkfanatic on December 30, 2008
RENTON – Seattle Seahawks players last week took up a collection to buy a fancy motorcycle in appreciation of Mike Holmgren’s coaching.
By rights, the media around here should have taken up a collection for his having filled our notebooks for 10 seasons. Maybe we could have afforded a used moped.
Following Holmgren will be a challenge for Jim Mora in a number of areas. The toughest might be behind the microphone during press conferences.
As Holmgren proved again Tuesday at his final media obligation with the Seahawks, he’s the absolute best in the business at handling reporters and broadcasters. He won the NFL’s Horrigan Award last year for his media dealings; they should have retired the trophy.
During these press conferences, Holmgren routinely offers enough stories, insights, relevant recollections and lessons in football mechanics, protocol and history that you could come up with a half-dozen or more good story angles.
He routinely told us whatever it was that he wanted us to hear, and if he had been asked something he didn’t want to answer, he would divert you with a better story about his days as a high school teacher, or a construction worker, or about a lecture he once got from an elderly woman in a grocery store in Green Bay on how to defeat the Bears.
In 2006 when his contract was extended two years, he was asked how they arrived at the two-year term. “The lease on my boat is up in two years,” he answered. Everybody laughed and nobody revisited the topic.
Tuesday, he added a tale about his days as a singer in the band “Big Bop and the Choppers.” (“I can still sing,” he offered when talking about a band reunion, but he feared that the dance moves required of the “Choppers” might be tough on his knees).
Bless his heart, but Chuck Knox couldn’t carry Holmgren’s thesaurus.
He said that his lessons in media relations were provided by head coaches he worked under – Bill Walsh and George Seifert. And the keys to it, he said, are not complex.
“Don’t be condescending,” he said. “Don’t think you have all the answers and nobody (else) knows anything.”
That … and never reading the newspaper or listening to the radio. He said he has learned to do neither, but all coaches say that.
I’d argue that a larger part of it is having some personal depth, good humor, and a great deal of patience.
He endlessly suffers fools without retaliation beyond the occasional stern look. For instance, when a cell phone rang during his press conference Tuesday – for the thousandth time in recent years – he once again didn’t snap. When it kept ringing and finally made an absurd shut-down noise, Holmgren jokingly asked if that meant it was time for him to finish up.
Oh, he’s not above clichés or hauling out well-worn favorites. “It is what it is,” and “it’s a real thing,” grew to be verbal crutches for him. “He’s one of my favorite guys …” became a phrase that prefaced an assessment that meant somebody was in his doghouse. And “… they’re like your kids,” meant that he wanted to strangle his players but knew the law would frown on it.
He always confessed to being a traditionalist with a respect for the history of the game. Whenever asked about developments in the NFL, this guy could call upon personal experiences with luminaries such as Walsh, Joe Montana, Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Reggie White or Brett Favre. Who else could do that?
The unvarnished transcripts or two-dimensional quotes in the papers never gave Holmgren justice because so much of his communication came from tone of voice, gestures and even sound effects.
He made what passed for a helicopter noise when talking about quarterback Matt Hasselbeck throwing what Holmgren called “his whirlybird” passes.
He had two levels of eye rolls. The less dramatic was for the antics of placekickers. (He said he coaches them thusly: “You make the kick … I won’t yell at you.”) The more violent eye roll – which cannot be quoted – is saved for agents. “You know I love those guys,” he once said, his eyes doing full 360s.
One of his talents is hinting at a negative while using a positive statement that would look entirely defensible in print.
About former receiver Darrell Jackson, for instance, he once said “He gave you everything he had on Sunday.” You were left to infer that Jackson’s preparation and dedication on the other days was substandard.
Whenever asked about a play that didn’t work, he often answered: “Gil (Haskell, offensive coordinator) called that one.”
Whenever asked about his influence on the defense’s adjustments during the game, he always said he would flip the headset switch to communicate with the coordinator and say: “Hey, do something to stop this.”
He hated hypotheticals, and begged off those questions.
Sometimes he quoted Shakespeare (“To thine own self be true”) or movies, current and classic, and when asked to comment on Hasselbeck’s aborted mustache experiment, he suggested he looked like Boston Blackie, a mostly forgotten movie detective.
And, contrary to the image long harbored by the public, he’s willing to concede mistakes.
Tuesday, when asked about his experiences as general manager, he said, “I messed up. But I did learn. I don’t think I made the same mistake twice.”
He will admit “I’m human” when he owns up to a failure. His wife is frequently brought up as his conscience, and his youngest daughter, Gretchen, sometimes appears as an anecdotal critic who symbolizes Holmgren’s lower-rung ranking in family politics.
I’d say that Holmgren underestimates his ability to dance; he’s quite adept at tiptoeing around topics.
Asked about being a general manager again in the future, he kidded. “Once you have a little taste of the fine wines, it’s hard to get the ones where you have to screw off the tops.”
© 2008, Seahawks 12th Man Army. All rights reserved.
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