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Thursday, July 12, 2007
Force’s Plank proves he can coach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The man was spreading mayonnaise on a Whopper when he suddenly thought, “You know, there’s more to life than this.”
Now, I’m fairly certain Sid Gillman wasn’t dropping fries when he thought, “Hmmm, the forward pass.” But everybody evolves in their own way.
This is indoor football. Most consider it a mind-numbing, genetic mutation between sport and pinball. But if you can get past that, one thing has become abundantly clear: Doug Plank can coach.
In three seasons running the Georgia Force, your Arena league entry, Plank is 37-17, including playoffs. His team is a win away from reaching the league championship game for the second time in three years. He was just named coach of the year for the second time. And coaching is coaching.
I tell you this because there’s a decent chance Doug Plank will be gone before anybody ever realized he lived or worked here.
He acknowledges there have been coaching feelers from elsewhere. He acknowledges even a position coaching offer in the NFL would be tempting. Any Arena league player would leap at a chance to coach in the NFL, and it’s no different for a coach. It’s a step up.
“Having been in the NFL,” he said, “I understand the hierarchy in football.”
One day you’re managing minimum-waged burger-flippers. The next day you’re drawing up a playbook. Sort of takes the luster off that whole “coaching genius” concept, doesn’t it?
“It sounds crazy, but those same skills that I had when I was at Burger King, I used when I became a coach,” Plank said. “It’s all coaching. It’s just not called coaching. It’s managing people. It has the same fundamentals in terms of trying to motivate and inspire. The bottom line is you’re really just a salesman. You’re trying to sell your philosophies to your employees or your players.”
Plank knows real football. He played real football. He grew up and played high school ball in Western Pennsylvania. Then Ohio State. Then the Chicago Bears. He was a smart, overachieving safety in Buddy Ryan’s 46 defense (named for Plank’s jersey number). He hit hard. He tucked smelling salts in his pants’ waistband, just to have them handy if he got knocked dizzy.
But after eight seasons, he was toast. “A hundred tackles a season for eight years — that’s like 800 train wrecks,” he said.
His body told him to quit. His head didn’t debate the subject.
Multiple concussions. Five knee surgeries. A spinal concussion that to this day has left his left leg partially numb. He admits becoming “very disenchanted with football. I wanted to get as far from it as I could.”
So he traded physical anguish for mental. He operated 22 Burger Kings in three states over a 20-year span, and as many as 13 at once. The restaurants were open 20 hours a day, seven days a week, 363 days a year. (Quoting: “I’m one of the few people who can say they’ve made more sandwiches than their mother.”)
The restaurants took over his life. Then came just another work day, an intended drive from his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., to the lunch rush in Tempe. Plank tuned on the car radio. He heard the NFL’s Cardinals were naming Ryan their new head coach. He decided to take a detour to offer congratulations. That turned into a career detour. At the news conference, he was asked to be on pre- and post-game shows. That led to other broadcasting jobs. That led former Dallas quarterback Danny White, then coach of the Arizona Rattlers, to ask him if he wanted to get into coaching.
Plank said no. But he thought about it. Then, a month later: “I had this epiphany at the restaurant while I was spreading mayonnaise.” Enough with the condiments.
Three years as Arizona’s defensive coordinator and three Arena Bowl appearances led to his hiring by the Force. This coaching job almost certainly will lead to another.
“I know in my heart I can do this,” he said.
He says he’s 5 feet 10. Swears he used to be 5-11 3/4. Something about age and tackles and compressed bones.
He has occasional memory loss, but joked, “I’m no different than anybody in their 50s who walks into a room and thinks, ‘Why am I here?’ “
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen when he walks into a locker room. Plank knows why he’s there. No more mayo-infused epiphanies are needed.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
No. 756? Better be there, Bud
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Bud Selig is a third-rate commissioner and a first-class ditherer. This week he told a meeting of the Baseball Writers Association of America he had “made no decision yet” as to whether he’ll pay personal witness to Barry Bonds’ attempt to hit No. 756.
Bonds, as you may have heard, has 751 home runs. Why is Blundering Bud still uncertain? Quoth the commish: “I said I’d [decide] at the appropriate time, and I’ll determine what the appropriate time is.”
And then this: “This is very personal, very sensitive, and I don’t feel comfortable talking about it.”
The commish doesn’t feel comfortable talking about the biggest issue in baseball, which is precisely how Bonds — and whether or not he used steroids — became the biggest issue in baseball. Because the sport and its silly guardian chose to ignore what was happening in the ’90s, choosing blissful ignorance over reasonable suspicion when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa launched their assault on Roger Maris’ record. Instead Bud and baseball simply rode the giddy moment and let teams bank the gate receipts from the great chase of 1998, and now the bill has come due.
Barry Bonds has never tested positive for steroids. Barry Bonds has never been suspended for circumventing the rules of the game. Barry Bonds remains eligible to play and for his statistical achievements to be tabulated. How could Bud Selig possibly ignore this by not showing up for No. 756?
Bowie Kuhn was elsewhere when Hank Aaron hit No. 715, and the sport has spent the last 30 years trying to apologize. Imagine how it will play among African-Americans, an audience baseball keeps saying it is trying to cultivate, if Bud stiffs Bonds nine years after he conspicuously lauded McGwire, who’s white, and Sosa, who’s from the Dominican Republic.
And what if it’s never proved that Bonds used steroids? What if all we’re left with is raging suspicion? Would that be enough to give the “very sensitive” commissioner a pass on attendance? No, it won’t. Which is why Blundering Bud has to grit his teeth and be there. Otherwise he’ll be admitting what no commissioner can ever afford to admit: That what he calls “the most hallowed record” in his precious sport is bogus.
Permalink | Comments (103) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
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