Peyton Williams, Josh Compton, and Tanner Bradley

Dr. Buchanan

Coaching and Officiating

30 January 2017

Moneyball Movie Summary and Coaching Comparison

The movie Moneyball is a true story that starts out at the end of the 2001 Major League

Baseball Season. The Oakland Athletics and general manager Billy Beane, who is played as

Brad Pitt, have just lost to the New York Yankees. Following the end of the season, the Athletics

lose three star players including Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon. Now that the Athletics have

very little star talent on their team, Beane has to alter the way he develops a team that can

actually be competitive. With such a small payroll, there is not much that Beane can do.

Therefore, he hires a young man named Peter Brand, played as Jonah Hill. Brand uses his

intellectual capability to base players value in a way unlike anyone else. Brand then becomes

the mastermind of assembling the ultimate team of undervalued players that will not hurt the

Oakland payroll. Other coaches, scouts, and the managerial staff are not fans of Brands ideas

and his concept of acquiring new players. After Brand explains to Beane his ideas and visions,

Beane contacts the suggested players and signs them to become a part of the Oakland Athletics

organization. After the signings of the new players, Beane is faced with displeasure from

manager Art Howe. Howe ignored Beanes idea for the future and played the players he wanted

to play and assembled the team he wanted to assemble. Since Howe would not do what Beane

wanted, Beane sold the remaining star player, Carlos Pena so that Howe now had no choice but

to use the newly signed players. As the 2002 season begins, the Athletics start out slow. As the

season progresses, Oaklands talents increase. They go on to set an American League Record
and win 20 straight games. The Athletics end up losing in the postseason again, this time to the

Minnesota Twins. Beane is happy overall with the outcome of the season, given his limited

amount of money to purchase players. After the season is over, he turns down an offer to

manage the Boston Red Sox so that he can stay in Oakland.

In the movie, Brad Pitts character Billy Beane shows many of the same coaching

qualities that are evident in Hardman & Jones The Ethics of Sports Coaching. Billy Beane

shares many of the typical coaching qualities as well as having some of his very own unique and

distinctive attributes. For anyone that has seen the movie, they would all probably agree that

Billy Beanes style was one unlike anybody else in the history of baseball. Throughout the

whole movie, the general manager Billy Beane battles doubters. Whether it be the scouts who

look for talent or the players in his organization, Beane was always doubted. Despite this, Beane

continues on with his strategy to recruit players and build the team from the ground up. Beane

uses an unorthodox approach when finding players and many of his front office colleagues do

not agree with his strategies. However, Beane urges them to adapt or die when talking of his

new approach. This method can be used for some coaches when they have been around for an

extended period of time. Many coaches today can be stuck in their old-school ways and cannot

connect well with their players. At first, Beane does not connect well with his players. However,

as time progresses, he begins to open up to them which allows them to become leaders to the

younger, newer players on the team. By doing this, Beane gives the players the opportunity to

buy into his system and goals thus producing more victories and ultimately a successful season.

There was always going to be somebody that questioned Billy Beanes style. When it

comes to a question of style and basing that off of the basic, stereotypical coaching elements,

other elements can similarly inscribe the perspectival identity of a coach, and in turn dictate the
skills he respectively elevates and downgrades (Hardman & Jones, 2011, p. 66). Based on that

quote alone, one could easily see that Billy Beane had an identity of his own. There was no other

coach like him and there was no other coach that could gain the amount of the success that he did

in the manner in which he did it.

Also, when it comes to coaching, trust is one of the most vital things that must exist in a

coachs relationship with those around him. A coach must gain trust from not only his players,

but from the office staff, his assistants, and even the fans as well. At first, the Oakland Athletics

Organization did not have much trust in Billy Beane. However, to enact and to evaluate trusting

relationships necessarily requires a range of dispositions from courage, to wickedness, spite,

generosity, foolhardiness, benevolence and beyond (Hardman & Jones, 2011, p. 34). Billy

Beane had each and every one of these qualities. Therefore, he was able to quickly win over

those around him and gain their trust. Billys courage came when he hired Peter Brand as a scout

that would eventually assemble a winning baseball team. His wickedness came when he only

did things his way and when he destroyed the locker room after yelling at his players for

enjoying a loss. Beanes spite was seen when he sold Carlos Pena just because the manager

Art Howe went against Beane and chose to play him anyways. Billy Beane showed his

generosity when he gave many no-name, undervalued players the opportunity to play in the

major leagues for the Oakland As. Billys foolhardiness was evident after the Oakland Athletics

organization lost Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon. When he took the chance with Peter Brand

and decided to assemble a team of players that nobody had ever heard of, his foolhardiness paid

off and led to a very successful season. Lastly, Beanes benevolence was seen through the

relationship he had with his daughter.

 Those that had to trust in Billy Beane had to keep in mind that he was a perfectionist

general manager. He wanted wins and he was going to do whatever it took to get them. It is said

that a good coach not only searches for scientific knowledge but is engaged in a practical search

for reflective and good choices in the many dilemmas of his or her profession (Hardman &

Jones, 2011, p. 19). Beane hired Brand for this exact reason and Brand used the scientific

knowledge to find the players that would have the best chance of getting on base and scoring

runs. In the movie, Beane empowers his newly signed first basemen. Hardman & Jones describe

that a coach with a good, perfectionist scheme should empower their athletes through hard

training and effort. A good coach would encourage their athlete to explore their talents and

develop more into a better athlete, which is exactly what Billy Beane did. Coaching may also

require intimidating your athletes or the opponents. In this case, there was one certain occasion

where Beane really intimidated his players. The definition of intimidation states that

intimidation is intended to elicit fear, to browbeat or to frighten someone into submission by

including distress or a sense of inferiority (Simon, 2013, p. 140). Beane placed fear into his

players and intimidated them in the scene where he catches them having fun after losing that

days game. He storms into the locker room, hits the radio with a bat, screams at his players, and

then throws the water cooler everywhere on his way out of the door. This form of intimidation

was far better than any physical or financial punishment. This form of intimidation woke his

players up as they began their record-setting 20 game win streak.

Near the end of the movie, Beane starts to interact more with his players. He resembles

a reminder of what Hardman and Jones said. Hardman & Jones (2011, p.21) stated that sport

can provide images of the possibilities of human interaction, images that carry moral significance

for above and beyond the realm of sport.

 As one could see, Billy Beane had a very unique coaching style, yet he resembled many

of the qualities and attributes that many coaches share. Beanes unique philosophy on his team

played a vital role in the success of the Oakland Athletics and allowed him to do much more than

just provide success on the baseball field.

 Works Cited

Hardman, A. R., & Jones, C. (2011). The ethics of sports coaching. Milton Park, Abingdon,

Oxon: Routledge.

Simon, R. L. (2013). The ethics of coaching sports: moral, social, and legal issues. Boulder, CO:

Westview Press.