HawkShack.com

During training camp back in 1976, Head Coach Jack Patera never even allowed his players to take water breaks. Fast forward to 2015:

The San Francisco 49ers are in the midst of a complete franchise overhaul, resignations and retirements changing the entire character of the team. As part of that, the 49ers have consulted with Stanford University researchers to figure the best ways to reach the millennial generation.

Their answer: let the players play on their phones.

At first blush, it seems completely counter to every tough-guy football cliche ever: taking smartphone breaks? Really? But the more the 49ers considered it, the more it made sense, and as a result, the team takes breaks every half-hour to let the players check their phones, post status updates, and the like.


I wonder what our charter head coach is thinking the world has come to.


http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutd ... 29535.html

Unbelievable. This could only happen on the west coast.

Many times while out for dinner in a restaurant, I see these guys sitting there with a miserable look on their face as their Date is texting away madly for minutes at a time.

I have told my wIfe on more than one occasion that after the Third time a date would have done that to me - I would have taken her phone and dunked it into the Water Glass.

I suggest that should be the same response that NFL Football coaches should use for players who insist on sending texts and updating their twitter and facebook posts during practice.

savvyman wrote:Many times while out for dinner in a restaurant, I see these guys sitting there with a miserable look on their face as their Date is texting away madly for minutes at a time.

I have told my wIfe on more than one occasion that after the Third time a date would have done that to me - I would have taken her phone and dunked it into the Water Glass.

I suggest that should be the same response that NFL Football coaches should use for players who insist on sending texts and updating their twitter and facebook posts during practice.

I've seen similar things happen in meetings at my place of employment. Once in a meeting called by our plant manager to talk about why we were not meeting expectations, a number of us were engaged in a serious debate and that same plant manager shows us that he don't give a rip as he had his nose buried into his cell phone and wasn't paying attention to the debate. It's the ultimate disrespect IMO. That was in direct contrast to an event I saw happen a couple of decades ago when our manager threw a book at someone because they'd dozed off, said if anyone wasn't giving him their complete, undivided attention that he'd fire them on the spot. How things have changed!

Can you imagine having to be a high school teacher under these conditions?

They think a bunch of adults can't go more than 30 minutes without checking their fcking iPhones?

The 49ers are going to put the Onion out of business.

Can you imagine having to be a high school teacher under these conditions?

No. Fcking. Way.

I think Jack would say "put a skirt on 'em".

RiverDog wrote:
Can you imagine having to be a high school teacher under these conditions?

Yeah, it can be tough.

c_hawkbob wrote:I think Jack would say "put a skirt on 'em".

Wrong Jack. That was Jack Lambert's response to new rules protecting quarterbacks.

You really think he was the only, or even the first, person to use that? My HS coach said it all the time.

c_hawkbob wrote:You really think he was the only, or even the first, person to use that? My HS coach said it all the time.

Of course not, but not many said it on a nationally broadcast interview like Lambert did. So whether or not he was the first or the millionth to make that statement, Lambert is the most memorable and gets the credit for it as if he were the first and only person to have said it.

So? Who saying anything about credit for saying anything first?

Fact is it's a very old school coach type thing to say and I could easily see Jack (or Chuck Knox or Don Shula etc.) saying it about today's practice habits.

c_hawkbob wrote:So? Who saying anything about credit for saying anything first?

Fact is it's a very old school coach type thing to say and I could easily see Jack (or Chuck Knox or Don Shula etc.) saying it about today's practice habits.

You asked if I thought if Lambert was the first or only person to mention putting skirts on players, and I said no, of course not. Whether or not Lambert's comments were original wasn't my point. My point was that the comment is more easily attributed to Lambert as he said it on national tv whereas Patera didn't, or at least not to my recollection, hence my comment that you got the wrong Jack. I meant it as a half hearted joke.

And yes, I, too, could easily imagine Patera, Knox, Shula, and hundreds of other old school coaches saying something like that about today's practice habits.

You asked if I thought if Lambert was the first or only person to mention putting skirts on players

It was rhetorical. You were correcting me, telling me I was wrong for saying Patera might say a thing that someone else said first. Had no place in the conversation, I never intimated that anyone said anything first.

I'm not pro phone break but I'm not anti-either. Why should I care? It actually sounds like something Pete Carroll would do.

I don't think Jack Patera would approve of the majority of stuff that Pete Carroll does... but then Jack Patera never went to a Super Bowl and Pete Carroll has been to two. So I don't really find myself caring what he'd think at this point. He was a different man for a different generation.

c_hawkbob wrote:It was rhetorical. You were correcting me, telling me I was wrong for saying Patera might say a thing that someone else said first. Had no place in the conversation, I never intimated that anyone said anything first.

Sorry, guy. That wasn't my intent.

Now where's that thing you once posted indicating that I ought to relax?

kalibane wrote:I'm not pro phone break but I'm not anti-either. Why should I care? It actually sounds like something Pete Carroll would do.

I don't think Jack Patera would approve of the majority of stuff that Pete Carroll does... but then Jack Patera never went to a Super Bowl and Pete Carroll has been to two. So I don't really find myself caring what he'd think at this point. He was a different man for a different generation.

It's not just Patera. Vince Lombardi would never approved of the majority of stuff Pete Carroll does, either, and he won the first two SB's. Nor would Chuck Knoll, Tom Landry, Don Shula, or 99% of the old school coaches approve of such tactics. It's a new age. IMO today's professional athletes are much more pampered and spoiled than they were 20, 30, or 40 years ago. Like Cbob, my old hs coach would roll over in his grave if he heard of such things.

I'm not saying Pete's wrong or that this latest twist is wrong. What I am doing is drawing a contrast between modern coaches/athletes and their counterparts from the past.

Right as I said.. different man, different era.

I get differences in coaching style, and I get the move to more 'loose' rules and such.

But iPhone breaks, every 30 minutes or whatever?

That's not some bold, new coaching philosophy- that's treating adult men like attention-deficit-riddled 6th-graders.

You can defend it to some degree saying "That's just how kids are nowadays!", but that's less a defense of the move and more an indictment of the participation-trophy generation with which this country is plagued.

I *cannot wait* for the first film of the 49ers hearing the whistle and all of them running for their toys. It's gonna be beautiful.

I tend to think this is getting a sensationalist spin and that it's likely that the decided to schedule breaks every half hour and players will be allowed to utilize phones during those break times, not that the breaks were instituted for the expressed purpose of updating facebook.

burrrton wrote:I get differences in coaching style, and I get the move to more 'loose' rules and such.

But iPhone breaks, every 30 minutes or whatever?

That's not some bold, new coaching philosophy- that's treating adult men like attention-deficit-riddled 6th-graders.

You can defend it to some degree saying "That's just how kids are nowadays!", but that's less a defense of the move and more an indictment of the participation-trophy generation with which this country is plagued.

I *cannot wait* for the first film of the 49ers hearing the whistle and all of them running for their toys. It's gonna be beautiful.

My sentiments exactly.

kalibane wrote:I tend to think this is getting a sensationalist spin and that it's likely that the decided to schedule breaks every half hour and players will be allowed to utilize phones during those break times, not that the breaks were instituted for the expressed purpose of updating facebook.

Yeah, reconsidering, I bet you're right. It's too ridiculous otherwise.