By Brian Whitwham
Sept. 28 was an embarrassing day for the Ottawa Renegades.
They were stomped by the Saskatchewan Roughriders, 29-11, but that’s nothing new.
What got the most media attention was a third-quarter squabble on the Renegades’ bench in which John Grace (linebacker) confronted Nigel Williams (slot-back) after a dropped ball by Williams killed an offensive drive. The mistakes continually made on offence have been a source of frustration all season.
Whether it was from a punch or from a helmet being knocked from Williams’ hand, the equipment manager, Gavin Bell, was hit with something while standing off to the side. He ended up having to get stitches for a cut above a swollen left eye.
Afterwards, in the media, both players were quick to say that they’d made up and that it would never happen again. Let’s hope that’s true because if there’s one thing that can damage a team, it’s internal conflict.
Joe Paopao, Renegades’ head coach, seemed to brush off the incident as illustrated by his reply to reporters.
“It’s part of the sports fabric when emotions are running high. They’re competitive guys — our whole team is full of competitive guys,” Paopao said. “I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often . . . it’s a ‘heat-of-the-battle’ thing, and this team is mild otherwise.”
Fair enough, emotions do run high, but this still isn’t behavior that Paopao wants to condone.
Dr. Penny Werthner, a sports psychologist and professor at the University of Ottawa says there is a tendency for coaches at both the amateur and professional level to ignore this sort of problem, sometimes under the impression the that added emotion can actually help the team’s overall performance.
Werthner says this can be true for the short-term. (That may even have been the case for Williams. He caught a touchdown in the fourth quarter.)
But, she adds that this sort of tension can linger after the game, spilling into the locker room, the next practice and the next game where it can damage the team’s execution.
We don’t have to look far to find cases of this in team sports.
Before Phil Jackson became the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, the team struggled with the high-profile feud between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. It didn’t do much for the morale of the San Francisco Giants when Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds got into a shoving match in June 2001 in the dugout. The Minnesota Vikings have an offence that is continuously breaking down this season largely due to the clashing egos of Randy Moss and Dante Culpepper.
And remember, these are only the cases we hear about. There are undoubtedly many more that occur away from the public eye.
Paopao may not have taken the light stance his comments would suggest. Many teams put a nice face on for the media and deal with their problems internally. That’s fine, handling their own conflict is their responsibility anyway.
When Jackson arrived in LA, he immediately addressed the ego clash of his two star players by making it clear that their behavior would have to change.
There was a lot of speculation in the media about how Detroit Red Wings’ head coach, Scottie Bowman would deal with the egos on a team with a payroll up past $60 million. But Bowman also made it clear that he wouldn’t put up with big egos and he coached the team to a Stanley Cup victory.
So there are successful ways to handle teams with internal battles.
When conflict comes up on any team whether professional or amateur, it must be dealt with quickly and effectively so it doesn’t become detrimental to the team’s performance.