Full-Court Stress

By Sean Gregory

Imagine a job where outsiders write daily performance evaluations read by thousands living near your giant, steel-encased cubicle. You have an office that, during work hours, invites throngs of unqualified guests to sit beside you, question your judgment, even scream that you don't deserve a livelihood. "A stockbroker doesn't have 80,000 people sitting behind him just waiting for a mistake," says Jim Fassel, whom fans serenaded with "Fire Fassel!" chants during his final weeks as head coach of the New York Giants last season. "It can drive you crazy." From head coach to head case in three easy steps.

Few jobs entail such obvious stress as that of a pro coach. And the stakes are higher than ever before. In the free-agent era of millionaire coaches, owners expect improvement overnight: Win now or turn in your whistle. Six NFL headmen were fired at the end of last year. Since the beginning of the 2002-2003 season, 18 NBA coaches have lost their jobs, including six canned since the start of this season. Washington Wizards coach Eddie Jordan holds the longest tenure of the seven coaches in the NBA's Atlantic Division; he has been on the job for less than 10 months. "These knee-jerk reactions reflect poor decision making from management and don't take the long haul into account," says Miami Heat president Pat Riley, who quit coaching this year after an eight-year run with the Heat burned him out. "God, it doesn't look good for our profession."

At least his profession has company. Stress is spreading across the economy. With more than 2 million jobs lost over the past three years and outsourcing looming, you don't have to be an NBA coach to feel the heat. Every corporate manager with a mortgage and an eye on the next quarter is feeling it too. Yet today's superstressed pro coaches can offer lessons for beleaguered bosses. "Coaching is a rare profession that is very clear-cut, where the results are instantaneous," says Sam Karson, a stress-management expert and former chief psychologist for the Federal Aviation Administration and its frazzled air-traffic controllers. "It's important to know how these guys program themselves to take risks, to confront pressure."

Like many of us, some pro coaches confront pressure by running away from it. Denver Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik, who's in the hot seat despite winning more games in the first half of this season than he did all of last year, does yoga. "Once you generate the relaxation response and the chain of everyday thought is broken, things will just flow," says Dr. Herbert Benson, a Harvard Medical School professor and the president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston. When you relax, relax. Ex--Orlando Magic coach Doc Rivers, canned this season after a 1-10 start, says his biggest mistake in Orlando was never turning off the hoops. "I'd approach the tee and wonder if a play could work better if Tracy McGrady moved two feet to the right," says Rivers, an avid golfer. "I have to handle that better next time around."

Rivers took it out on the golf ball, not the players. In today's game, screamers like Bob Knight earn more enmity than respect. According to both coaches and stress experts, volcanoes shouldn't be welcome in the white-collar world either. "Every time you embarrass a player on the sideline or in a huddle, it's a mistake," says Jim O'Brien, who quit as Boston Celtics coach in January after new general manager Danny Ainge traded away several of his favorite players. "You have to be man enough to apologize." That doesn't mean you can't be demanding or get close to employees in other ways, say the experts. "The good leaders in business and sports are the taskmasters, but they are also the people who know and care for the individuals under their watch," says Glenn Schiraldi, a stress-management professor at the University of Maryland. "They create a less tense environment. That helps performance."

Coaches also concede the need to give up some control. Fassel says better delegation could have relieved some of the stresses of coaching in New York. Two years ago, after the Giants struggled on offense during their first six games, he added the play-calling responsibilities to his plate. "Running the offense is a fun part of the game. It's the reason I got into coaching in the first place," he says. "But as the big fish, I should be able to hire someone to do that job. Sure, it would have made things easier."

No doubt, things were harsh for Fassel this year. How does a coach who once reached a Super Bowl cope with public humiliation? Not by locking himself in his home. "You have to realize that the fans that get POed and scream don't come close in numbers to those that support you," he says. "There is a silent majority out there that respects how hard coaches work, even when teams are not performing."

Such rational thinking may help calm coaches, but it's not enough to recharge a losing team. Bzdelik, whose Nuggets dropped nine of 10 games after the All-Star break, tried small things like putting an arm around a player to rebuild confidence and airing the good plays during film sessions. Denver soon snapped out of it. Riley's not really a coddler. During his final days with the Heat, which finished last in 2003, he taught history lessons to the team. "You have to educate today's young players about how the Magic Johnsons and Larry Birds went about their business," he says. "They don't have the same absolute passion."

Like most corporate managers, coaches have bosses. And a coach's boss is reading the same critical newspaper articles as the fans. Rivers says it was important to have "courageous conversations" with the team's general manager, John Gabriel, who has since been demoted. When Orlando started losing, Rivers told Gabriel that expectations were outrageous for a club with seven new players. "I'm glad I spoke up for myself, but I shouldn't have been so blunt," he says. "That got me into some trouble." In Boston, O'Brien says there's a misconception that he and Ainge didn't get along. "We communicated well," he says. "Danny thought we couldn't win with the players we had, and I thought we could." With their contrasting philosophies flushed out, O'Brien quietly moved on.

With his baggy eyes, sagging suits and thinning hair, Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy seems to epitomize the stressed-out manager. Two years ago, he walked out on the Knicks at the start of what proved to be a disastrous season. Yet Van Gundy insists that although his team is fighting for play-off position in the NBA's talent-rich Western Conference, he's not an anxious guy. "Being a coach is more frustrating than stressful, because so much is beyond your control." He may draw up the brilliant play, but Yao Ming has to make the chip shot. Knowing that someday they are likely to be fired, Van Gundy and others take comfort in the big paychecks. Before he got to the top, he scraped along as a lowly assistant at the college and pro levels. Real stress, he says, is "living paycheck to paycheck to take care of the bills." Next to that, listening to 20,000 fans screaming for your head is easy.