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The Language of the Most Successful Professional Basketball Coaches

Bryce Correa

University of Central Florida

ENC 1102

Professor Mooney

April 12, 2020

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Discourse communities are groups of people that use similar rhetoric and communication

styles to achieve a common goal which is elaborated upon by Johns (2019) in her piece on

discourse communities. Rhetoric, according to Downs (2019), refers to the unconscious

principals that humans use when communicating. The professional basketball coaching

discourse community is goal oriented as are all sports and one of the main jobs of a coach is to

communicate effectively with their players to reach a common goal, which is winning games.

This is an intriguing discourse community to me because the effectiveness of a coach cannot

really be examined by just watching the team play since their role is behind the scenes. There

has been research on different parts of coaching such as the teaching aspect, the commitment

aspect, and the player involvement aspect of coaching. While this research is useful and

important, it is mostly from the college coaching level and below so this research will fill the

gap, examining professional coaches.

The teaching aspect of coaching is one that is mentioned by Gould (2016). According to

this source, which is focused on high school coaches, a very large part of coaching is the

teaching aspect, but this has to be done in a way that is less authoritative and more helpful. The

idea of being helpful is one that Manfred (2005) looks at in their article that concerns Zen

Buddhism. Zen Buddhism is relevant to coaching because the coach that has won the most out

of anyone is often referred to by the nickname of “the Zen Master” and in many ways, he

embodied the ideas suggested by Zen Buddhism. Zen Buddhism deal a lot with leadership and

the idea that as a leader, you can teach people, but if you are a student looking to learn, you must

empty your mind of your previous thought and beliefs first. According to Ehrenworth’s (2015)

article titled, “Those Who Can Coach Can Teach”, teaching and coaching go hand in hand. In

this study, coaches and teachers taught high school students at the same time instead of one
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teacher, the results indicated that coaches are really good teachers and have good methods of

teaching information.

To this date there has been almost no research done that has focused on the discourse

community of professional basketball coaches. Some of the most valuable and important

information comes from interviews with the coaches in the discourse community since they are

the ones that are in control of a team which is a discourse community itself. The research that is

applicable to this discourse community is mostly focused on coaching which is a broader topic.

The goal of this is to examine a more specific part of the discourse community of coaches.

Future research could include some unsuccessful coaches and “average” coaches to compare to

the most successful coaches. This would lead to information about how much a coach actually

matters to a team (for professionals, the influence of coaches is different at all levels).

Methods

Gathering research for my research question was done mainly through observation of the

coaches during interviews. Coaching is a discourse community that uses almost exclusively,

verbal communication, therefore, finding texts to analyze is not easy. Since this is the case,

observation of interviews of coaches was the best option for gathering meaningful data to answer

the research question. The information that the coaches give in the interviews are valuable

because they give insight as to how they made their team and discourse community so

successful. The type of information that was looked for when analyzing the interviews were

repeated words or phrases. Things that were emphasized were also important. Mainly the

similarities and the differences between the coaches were noted and eventually put into a coding

chart.
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Since my research question is just focusing on the way in which the coaches

communicate and what they have in common, it is also helpful to have the point of view of some

of their best players. By including the accounts of the players as well, they are able to fill in the

gaps of what the coaches left out as well as give insight into other things that the coaches may

not have realized they did.

There were a lot of limitations when trying to collect primary data. Unfortunately, there

is not much that could be done in the limited amount of time to get the opinions of professional

basketball players. The fact that I could not access professional players or coaches meant that

my options for conducting research were very limited. Although I was able to conduct a survey,

the results were not very conclusive and meaningful. On Instagram a poll was posted asking a

few questions:

1. Does your team have a “love” for each other? (Yes or No)

2. Does your coach understand their players? (Yes or No)

3. Do you think coaching is important and a “game changer”? (Yes or No)

4. Are you happy to be coached by your coach? (Yes or No)

This was intended for only collegiate athletes since this is the closest (accessible) group

to professional athletes. This is not as representative of all professional basketball players since it

is focused on a different level, but it does give further insight and clarification on the topics that

the coaches address since college coaching and professional coaching have a lot in common.

This information is further interpreted in the results section.

Results

All four of the coaches’ interviews were analyzed and then organized into a coding chart.

The purpose of this is to organize the information from the interviews into an easy to read and
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follow chart. The chart shows patterns in how the coaches act and communicate with their

players. For example, if all of one column is filled up, this means that the coaches all have this in

common, although their methodology may still differ. If a column has one or two boxes filled in,

this means that those coaches are doing things differently that the others. The four “codes” that I

chose for my coding chart are, “finding a spark”, “knowledge and respect”, “desire for success”

and “love”. “Finding a spark” is something that three out of the four coaches addressed in their

interviews. What is meant by this is that these coaches, through writing and (mainly) verbal

rhetoric, believe that they must “find a spark” in order to bring out the best in your players. The

code of “knowledge and respect” refers to what knowledge and respect mean to coaches and

their players; this one is straightforward but important since all four of the coaches address this.

“Desire for success” is a theme that only one out of the four coaches address, but it is

emphasized many times, so it is included. “Love” is the last code and it is discussed by 2 of the

four coaches, this is included since it not a topic that comes up frequently in sports.

Coding Chart

Finding a “Spark” Knowledge/ Respect Desire for Success Love

Chi. Tribune Rather than being As a coach, you have Explains that
Interview authoritative, you to be authentic or coaches and
with Phil should inspire the players will see players need to
Jackson players to change through it. You gain have a “love” for
(2013) and become the respect of the each other in
better. players by being order to be a
open to their input. cohesive team.
WGBH He says as a coach, As a coach, he knew
interview you have to who to “change the
with Red change the pace to pace” on and who
Auerbach get the best out of he did not need to
(2009) people. Even if change the pace on.
this means starting Knowing your
conflict, getting players and what is
emotion out of best for them is
players through important to
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the way he Auerbach.

communicates is
valuable.
Positive It is the coach’s job As a coach, accept “Love” for the
Coaching to find the “spark” that you do not game as well as
Alliance that a team needs. need to be an for the team is
interview Thinks that the authoritative figure. essential for
with Steve spark can be found Rather, listen to success.
Kerr (2014) through your players and
involvement of “don’t act like a
players and value know it all because
of player opinions. nobody has all the
answers.
Interview Loyalty to the team As a player and a
with Pat and organization are coach, always hated
Riley (2019) important for losing. If you have
success. worked hard enough
to get something, do
not let anyone take it
from you.

Analysis of Interviews

#1 Phil Jackson:

This interview is from the most successful coach in the history of the National Basketball

Association. He thought that in order to find a spark, a coach must not be authoritative but

instead, inspire the players to become better. As for the code of “knowledge and respect”

Jackson believed that a coach must be “authentic”, without authenticity, players will see through

you. Phil Jackson also addressed the topic of “love” which is not very common in sports. He

explained that cohesive teams are the ones that have a “love” for each other. This is hard to

argue due to his success as a coach. Through his coaching he exhibited ethos pathos and logos,

establishing respect and credibility while having good reason for everything and appeal to the

emotions through his philosophy concerning love.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raRS7UyiF5U
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#2 Steve Kerr

This interview is with Steve Kerr who is the only coach out of the four that is still

coaching today. Steve Kerr believes that the “spark” is found through involvement of players

and their opinions but ultimately it is the coaches’ job; through this, Kerr is exhibiting both ethos

and logos. In regard to “knowledge and respect”, Kerr explains that “know it all coaching” is not

effective and makes players less respectful of the coach. Kerr also examines the topic of “love”,

stating that it is essential for team success and appealing to pathos.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjSpvurd4XM

#3 Red Auerbach

Auerbach addresses the topic of finding a “spark” but has a much different interpretation

of it. He believed that in order to get the best out of players, you had to bring out their emotions,

even if this meant creating conflict. This is different from the other coaches because Jackson and

Kerr focus more on inspiring the players. Auerbach had a similar methodology to Jackson and

Kerr when focusing on the topic of knowledge and respect, explaining that in order to obtain it,

you must know and understand your players. Though his methodology differed from the other

coaches, Auerbach was still successful at becoming a credible and logical coaching figure. He

also got the emotion out of players in any possible way which appealed to their emotions

(pathos).

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf0tHNnewAc

#4 Pat Riley

Pat Riley’s coaching methods are much different than the rest of the coaches. Pat Riley

believes that loyalty to the team and organization is essential for team success, if there is no

loyalty, there is no success. Through this philosophy, Riley is displaying ethos; he is saying that
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a team needs to trust each other and one of the best ways to do this is through loyalty. Riley also

believed that as a coach, you must have an extreme desire to be successful, and feed this to your

players. By doing this, Riley appeals to both pathos and logos as well, giving them reason to

strive for success through his own emotions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3o1BS5_kFc

Survey

The survey results as discussed in the methods section, were not as conclusive as I would

have liked due to the fact that it is difficult to gather opinions of professional athletes through a

survey since they have other things to do. The survey consisted these three questions that were

uploaded to social media:

1. Does your team have a “love” for each other? (Yes or No)

2. Does your coach understand their players? (Yes or No)

3. Do you think coaching is important and a “game changer”? (Yes or No)

4. Are you happy to be coached by your coach? (Yes or No)

These questions were put on a poll for anyone that followed my account to see, with a

disclaimer that only college athletes’ answers were counted. A total of 8 college level athletes

answered the poll although many other people who were not college athletes answered. Only the

data from the college level athletes was kept.

The first question’s results were 7-yes 1-no, the second question was 5-yes 3-no, the third

question 5-yes and 3-no, and the last question was 6-yes 2-no. These results, although not as

conclusive as possible, point towards the conclusion that coaches, through their rhetoric, impact

the culture and success of a team.

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Discussion/Conclusion

Ultimately, the research question was answered since the writing and rhetoric of the four

professional coaches was synthesized. Through this research, information about different

methods that coaches use has become clearer and the lack of research in the community of

professional basketball coaches has ended. The Branick (2019) piece, although focused on

football, had applicable concepts and gave a lot of good background information that helped

identify what to look for in the coach interviews. This helped develop my codes for the coding

chart as well as the Downs’ (2019) piece. Downs’ article examined rhetoric, which gave

extensive information about rhetoric and how to make sense of the things people say. For this

research, being able to interpret what people say is really important since all of the information is

verbal rhetoric. This made it much easier to synthesize the primary data-the interviews.

Coaching Rhetoric

After synthesizing the 4 coaches’ interviews, a few things are clear. First and most

obvious, the coach communicates almost exclusively through face to face verbal communication.

There are not many text-based things that coaches do, so the analysis of them was based off of

their verbal rhetoric. Second, coaching is much different at levels below college, but it is still

unknown how different the role of a coach within their discourse community is at the college

level versus the professional level. The four coaches that were observed in this study all had

different ideologies, but in the end, they all use rhetoric to appeal to ethos, logos, and pathos,

while simultaneously all trying to achieve the same goal. Their ideas for success were the same

but their philosophy of how to achieve success was the differentiator.

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For future research, the players firsthand opinions should be taken into account since they

are the ones who are being affected by the coach. Their opinions are the ones that really matter

since the players are the ones playing. Research comparing the different levels of competition

and how this affects coaching could also be conducted. An analysis of the best, high school,

college and professional basketball coaches could be done and then compared. This research

would answer the question of how the different levels of competition affect coaching, something

that would have been useful for my research since college athletes were the only opinions that

were accessible for this limited research.

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References

Branick, S. (2019) Coaches Can Read, Too. An Ethnographic Study of a Football Coaching

Discourse Community. 384-392. From: Writing about Writing.

Downs, D. (2019) Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making. Writing

about Writing.

Ehrenworth, M., Minor, C., Federman, M., Jennings, J., Messer, K., & McCloud, C. (2015).

Those Who Can Coach Can Teach: Collaborating with Athletic Coaches to Raise the

Level of Students’ Close Reading, Argumentation Skills, and Academic Agency. Journal

of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(1), 15-20. Retrieved March 1, 2020, from

www.jstor.org/stable/44011211.

Johns, Ann M. (1997). Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership,

Conflict, and Diversity. Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies.

Cambridge UP.

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries. (2005). Leadership Group Coaching in Action: The Zen of

Creating High Performance Teams. The Academy of Management Executive (1993-

2005), 19(1), 61-76. Retrieved March 1, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/4166153.

Mills, R. (1995). Reconceptualizing the Idea of Coach: Coaching as Teaching. American

Secondary Education, 23(2), 16-18. Retrieved April 2, 2020, from

www.jstor.org/stable/41064100.
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Nakazawa, A. (2014). Seeing Sports as Educational Activities: A Postwar History of

Extracurricular Sports Activities in Japan. Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, 45(1),

1-14. Retrieved April 2, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/43294571.

Naylor, A. (2006). The Coach's Dilemma: Balancing Playing to Win and Player

Development. The Journal of Education, 187(1), 31-48. Retrieved April 2, 2020, from

www.jstor.org/stable/42742626.