The 5 Stages of Grief for the Failed Longhorn Coach

[BrickHorn 18194]

1. Denial. Denial is the initial stage of grief that occurs when a Longhorn football coach proves to be an incompetent loser. A defense mechanism, the denial stage may last months or years. In this stage, you refuse to believe that the Savior of the Program is, in fact, a flawed person whose track record as a coach and a human being was littered with red flags from the beginning. 

It can't be Coach's fault! He's The One! Coach is going to Bring Texas Back. I've never been so sure of anything in my life. 

He just needs a few things. Like new players. 85 of them, to be exact. Each of our current players is a talentless fraud. Every recruiting service, high school coach, and rival program uniformly overrates recruits that will eventually commit to Texas by an average of 4.5 stars. That. Is. A. Fact.

And we need to fix the culture of the program for him. Our program culture is rotten. All of it! Except for the team colors, of course. And the logo. And the fight song, the school song, the various gameday traditions, the rivalries, the cheerleaders, the pom girls, the cannon, the trademark hand sign, the live mascot, and the inordinate devotion of resources to a sport at the expense of educational investment. And of course Coach himself and anything Coach does that can be considered cultural. All of that stuff can stay. But everything else about our culture is 100% rotten and has to go.

And don't get me started on the city of Austin. It's too weird, there are too many distractions, alcohol and drugs are sold within its confines, temptresses reside here, there's traffic, that one guy was throwing bricks at people on I-35 for a while a couple years ago, a monocled cobra died crossing the street here, etc., etc.

If only we replaced the whole roster, the entire culture of our program except for pretty much everything that makes up that culture, and the surrounding city of nearly 1 million people, then Coach would finally have the basic components he needs to win football games here! 

 

2. Anger. After a year or two of denial, you become angry. The results have not changed. COACH MUST GO! It's all his fault! It's always been his fault! These scoundrels arguing on-line that it's the players or the culture or OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY OF AUSTIN for Christ's sake are sinister agents of pro-Coach propaganda and always have been. How can they not recognize the obvious truth staring them squarely in the face? A truth I have always known because I am consistent and objective and hope that none of you are proficient in this message board's search feature. (Note that the Anger stage includes a sub-stage: "Denial that you were ever in denial.")

 

3. Bargaining. When the anger subsides, you coolly begin to seek ways to bargain the program out of the mess Coach created. Hey guys: Urban Meyer is available! Jon Gruden, too. What's the buyout? $34 million? That's pocket change for our wealthy donors! 

Surely they're rallying at South Fork as we speak, smoking cigars and drinking bourbon in a wood-paneled room full of leather couches and cowhide rugs, one by one dropping giant bags of cash into an oversized cowboy hat that one of them will toss to Sark as he is unceremoniously kicked out of a late-model American-made land yacht with a genuine longhorn hood ornament into the dusty desert night. Or maybe they'll toss him out of a helicopter! 

That's actually happening, right? If not, surely someone here knows one of these bigwigs, these veritable Gods Amongst Men. These Kings of the Program! Give your contact a call and let them know that they alone have the power to save us! 

What about Chip Kelly? Saban? Saban's realtor?

 

4. Depression. At this stage, the truth sinks in: Urban Meyer is not coming. Neither is Chip Kelly. Or Saban, Gruden, or Stoops. Or even Chris Peterson.

You must now face the fact that the program sucks. Just fundamentally sucks, in every conceivable way. Nobody wants to coach here. Nobody wants to play here. Maybe it's cursed. Maybe it's run by incompetent boobs. (What kind of idiot thinks he knows anything about football just because he has a pile of oil money and a giant sedan with longhorns glued to the grill? Who died and made that archetype I probably concocted in my own imagination King of the Program, anyway?!?)

Whatever the case, you now admit to yourself that you spend an inordinate amount of time and money supporting a mediocre football team. What happened to your life? You once had enthusiasm. Promise. Ambition. Now you just mope around drunk, declining food and sex after the orange team humiliates themselves on national TV, which is a weekly occurrence. "You sicken me," you spit through gritted teeth at your haphazardly-lipsticked face in the mirror.

 

5. Unbridled Optimism About the New Guy. The final stage of grief for the failed Longhorn coach commences immediately upon the hiring of the New Guy. The New Guy is a perfect fit. He's a hidden gem. He checks all the boxes. He will optimize the talent on hand. He will immediately improve recruiting. He will not botch talent evaluation like The Last Guy or The Guy Before That. He knows how to schmooze the boosters. He tells it like it is. 

Yep, one thing is for sure, you proudly inform any distant relative or acquaintance fortunate enough to be standing nearby and too polite to interrupt your sermon on the Good News of the New Guy: The New Guy is going to Bring Texas Back. 

I've never been so sure of anything in my life.

[TornACL 7676]

I thought this was gonna be some variation on the old "write two letters" joke. 

[DFW Horn 6118]

Prose worthy of Dan Jenkins and Bud Shrake.

Bravo, sir, but I don't see the Indifference stage. After 12 years, I went ahead and skipped Depression altogether. Fuck it. There's golf to be played. 

[Doc Reeves 6434]

20 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

1. Denial. Denial is the initial stage of grief that occurs when a Longhorn football coach proves to be an incompetent loser. A defense mechanism, the denial stage may last months or years. In this stage, you refuse to believe that the Savior of the Program is, in fact, a flawed person whose track record as a coach and a human being was littered with red flags from the beginning. 

It can't be Coach's fault! He's The One! Coach is going to Bring Texas Back. I've never been so sure of anything in my life. 

He just needs a few things. Like new players. 85 of them, to be exact. Each of our current players is a talentless fraud. Every recruiting service, high school coach, and rival program uniformly overrates recruits that will eventually commit to Texas by an average of 4.5 stars. That. Is. A. Fact.

And we need to fix the culture of the program for him. Our program culture is rotten. All of it! Except for the team colors, of course. And the logo. And the fight song, the school song, the various gameday traditions, the rivalries, the cheerleaders, the pom girls, the cannon, the trademark hand sign, the live mascot, and the inordinate devotion of resources to a sport at the expense of educational investment. And of course Coach himself and anything Coach does that can be considered cultural. All of that stuff can stay. But everything else about our culture is 100% rotten and has to go.

And don't get me started on the city of Austin. It's too weird, there are too many distractions, alcohol and drugs are sold within its confines, temptresses reside here, there's traffic, that one guy was throwing bricks at people on I-35 for a while a couple years ago, a monocled cobra died crossing the street here, etc., etc.

If only we replaced the whole roster, the entire culture of our program except for pretty much everything that makes up that culture, and the surrounding city of nearly 1 million people, then Coach would finally have the basic components he needs to win football games here! 

 

2. Anger. After a year or two of denial, you become angry. The results have not changed. COACH MUST GO! It's all his fault! It's always been his fault! These scoundrels arguing on-line that it's the players or the culture or OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY OF AUSTIN for Christ's sake are sinister agents of pro-Coach propaganda and always have been. How can they not recognize the obvious truth staring them squarely in the face? A truth I have always known because I am consistent and objective and hope that none of you are proficient in this message board's search feature. (Note that the Anger stage includes a sub-stage: "Denial that you were ever in denial.")

 

3. Bargaining. When the anger subsides, you coolly begin to seek ways to bargain the program out of the mess Coach created. Hey guys: Urban Meyer is available! Jon Gruden, too. What's the buyout? $34 million? That's pocket change for our wealthy donors! 

Surely they're rallying at South Fork as we speak, smoking cigars and drinking bourbon in a wood-paneled room full of leather couches and cowhide rugs, one by one dropping giant bags of cash into an oversized cowboy hat that one of them will toss to Sark as he is unceremoniously kicked out of a late-model American-made land yacht with a genuine longhorn hood ornament into the dusty desert night. Or maybe they'll toss him out of a helicopter! 

That's actually happening, right? If not, surely someone here knows one of these bigwigs, these veritable Gods Amongst Men. These Kings of the Program! Give your contact a call and let them know that they alone have the power to save us! 

What about Chip Kelly? Saban? Saban's realtor?

 

4. Depression. At this stage, the truth sinks in: Urban Meyer is not coming. Neither is Chip Kelly. Or Saban, Gruden, or Stoops. Or even Chris Peterson.

You must now face the fact that the program sucks. Just fundamentally sucks, in every conceivable way. Nobody wants to coach here. Nobody wants to play here. Maybe it's cursed. Maybe it's run by incompetent boobs. (What kind of idiot thinks he knows anything about football just because he has a pile of oil money and a giant sedan with longhorns glued to the grill? Who died and made that archetype I probably concocted in my own imagination King of the Program, anyway?!?)

Whatever the case, you now admit to yourself that you spend an inordinate amount of time and money supporting a mediocre football team. What happened to your life? You once had enthusiasm. Promise. Ambition. Now you just mope around drunk, declining food and sex after the orange team humiliates themselves on national TV, which is a weekly occurrence. "You sicken me," you spit through gritted teeth at your haphazardly-lipsticked face in the mirror.

 

5. Unbridled Optimism About the New Guy. The final stage of grief for the failed Longhorn coach commences immediately upon the hiring of the New Guy. The New Guy is a perfect fit. He's a hidden gem. He checks all the boxes. He will optimize the talent on hand. He will immediately improve recruiting. He will not botch talent evaluation like The Last Guy or The Guy Before That. He knows how to schmooze the boosters. He tells it like it is. 

Yep, one thing is for sure, you proudly inform any distant relative or acquaintance fortunate enough to be standing nearby and too polite to interrupt your sermon on the Good News of the New Guy: The New Guy is going to Bring Texas Back. 

I've never been so sure of anything in my life.

This is one of the kind of posts I expect from this place. It’d be nice if this tread wasn’t fucked up by immunization stupidity being expounded by people on both sides who have been immunized for everything else since they were 6.

-unless it has to do with how shitty it makes getting into the game and buying beer.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

Also, Im all for steps to recovery, but please don’t forget AA “Step 13”. It’s not the answer to the football problem, but boy it will certainly get you thru the off-season.

Dipshits have changed it to mean an Alcoholic had died and will forever be sober. In my day it mean you were able to fuck 13 AA chicks from your meetings

Edited November 18, 2021 by Doc Reeves

[bschoolprof 6232]

20 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

1. Denial. Denial is the initial stage of grief that occurs when a Longhorn football coach proves to be an incompetent loser. A defense mechanism, the denial stage may last months or years. In this stage, you refuse to believe that the Savior of the Program is, in fact, a flawed person whose track record as a coach and a human being was littered with red flags from the beginning. 

It can't be Coach's fault! He's The One! Coach is going to Bring Texas Back. I've never been so sure of anything in my life. 

He just needs a few things. Like new players. 85 of them, to be exact. Each of our current players is a talentless fraud. Every recruiting service, high school coach, and rival program uniformly overrates recruits that will eventually commit to Texas by an average of 4.5 stars. That. Is. A. Fact.

And we need to fix the culture of the program for him. Our program culture is rotten. All of it! Except for the team colors, of course. And the logo. And the fight song, the school song, the various gameday traditions, the rivalries, the cheerleaders, the pom girls, the cannon, the trademark hand sign, the live mascot, and the inordinate devotion of resources to a sport at the expense of educational investment. And of course Coach himself and anything Coach does that can be considered cultural. All of that stuff can stay. But everything else about our culture is 100% rotten and has to go.

And don't get me started on the city of Austin. It's too weird, there are too many distractions, alcohol and drugs are sold within its confines, temptresses reside here, there's traffic, that one guy was throwing bricks at people on I-35 for a while a couple years ago, a monocled cobra died crossing the street here, etc., etc.

If only we replaced the whole roster, the entire culture of our program except for pretty much everything that makes up that culture, and the surrounding city of nearly 1 million people, then Coach would finally have the basic components he needs to win football games here! 

 

2. Anger. After a year or two of denial, you become angry. The results have not changed. COACH MUST GO! It's all his fault! It's always been his fault! These scoundrels arguing on-line that it's the players or the culture or OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY OF AUSTIN for Christ's sake are sinister agents of pro-Coach propaganda and always have been. How can they not recognize the obvious truth staring them squarely in the face? A truth I have always known because I am consistent and objective and hope that none of you are proficient in this message board's search feature. (Note that the Anger stage includes a sub-stage: "Denial that you were ever in denial.")

 

3. Bargaining. When the anger subsides, you coolly begin to seek ways to bargain the program out of the mess Coach created. Hey guys: Urban Meyer is available! Jon Gruden, too. What's the buyout? $34 million? That's pocket change for our wealthy donors! 

Surely they're rallying at South Fork as we speak, smoking cigars and drinking bourbon in a wood-paneled room full of leather couches and cowhide rugs, one by one dropping giant bags of cash into an oversized cowboy hat that one of them will toss to Sark as he is unceremoniously kicked out of a late-model American-made land yacht with a genuine longhorn hood ornament into the dusty desert night. Or maybe they'll toss him out of a helicopter! 

That's actually happening, right? If not, surely someone here knows one of these bigwigs, these veritable Gods Amongst Men. These Kings of the Program! Give your contact a call and let them know that they alone have the power to save us! 

What about Chip Kelly? Saban? Saban's realtor?

 

4. Depression. At this stage, the truth sinks in: Urban Meyer is not coming. Neither is Chip Kelly. Or Saban, Gruden, or Stoops. Or even Chris Peterson.

You must now face the fact that the program sucks. Just fundamentally sucks, in every conceivable way. Nobody wants to coach here. Nobody wants to play here. Maybe it's cursed. Maybe it's run by incompetent boobs. (What kind of idiot thinks he knows anything about football just because he has a pile of oil money and a giant sedan with longhorns glued to the grill? Who died and made that archetype I probably concocted in my own imagination King of the Program, anyway?!?)

Whatever the case, you now admit to yourself that you spend an inordinate amount of time and money supporting a mediocre football team. What happened to your life? You once had enthusiasm. Promise. Ambition. Now you just mope around drunk, declining food and sex after the orange team humiliates themselves on national TV, which is a weekly occurrence. "You sicken me," you spit through gritted teeth at your haphazardly-lipsticked face in the mirror.

 

5. Unbridled Optimism About the New Guy. The final stage of grief for the failed Longhorn coach commences immediately upon the hiring of the New Guy. The New Guy is a perfect fit. He's a hidden gem. He checks all the boxes. He will optimize the talent on hand. He will immediately improve recruiting. He will not botch talent evaluation like The Last Guy or The Guy Before That. He knows how to schmooze the boosters. He tells it like it is. 

Yep, one thing is for sure, you proudly inform any distant relative or acquaintance fortunate enough to be standing nearby and too polite to interrupt your sermon on the Good News of the New Guy: The New Guy is going to Bring Texas Back. 

I've never been so sure of anything in my life.

Bravo.  Two comments:

1) In #1 (Denial), I'd also fold in staff changes. "He just needs a new _________________, and we'd be set!!" Of course, the "_____________" could be any myriad of things, from all new coordinators, to a new O-line coach, to a new strength coach. During the Strong years, some recruiting dorks actually suggested that we hire a "gameday" coach to make "gameday" decisions and let Charlie recruit or whatever.  I'm 99% sure they were not joking.  Putting the silliness of all that aside, this manifestation of denial is particularly ironic, because it was the coach they are defending that made these horrible hires in the first place and will of course be tasked with hiring replacements. Yep, we'll be all set.  

2) The sad thing is that we've been through this so many times, that I'd bet 90% or more of fans have just skipped straight to step 4, because they know how this all ends and cycle begins anew. They are ready for step 5 though!! 

There are of course the holdouts still stuck in step 1, and you can see their posts litter the board as we speak. I'm not sure if toward them I feel pity or envy though. It would be nice to still believe.   

[Eugene11 375]

55 minutes ago, Doc Reeves said:

This is one of the kind of posts I expect from this place. It’d be nice if this tread wasn’t fucked up by immunization stupidity being expounded by people on both sides who have been immunized for everything else since they were 6.

-unless it has to do with how shitty it makes getting into the game and buying beer.

You mean, kind of like like you just did? 

[6th Street 6357]

There's all the stuff in between

- early season out of conference loss

- sloppy special teams play

- excessive penalties 

- transfers

- firing of position coach 

- recruiting misses

- firing of coordinators 

- firing of head coach

 

[n64ra 1078]

I'm at step 4.

[lilMAC25 3778]

2 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

Bravo.  Two comments:

1) In #1 (Denial), I'd also fold in staff changes. "He just needs a new _________________, and we'd be set!!" Of course, the "_____________" could be any myriad of things, from all new coordinators, to a new O-line coach, to a new strength coach. During the Strong years, some recruiting dorks actually suggested that we hire a "gameday" coach to make "gameday" decisions and let Charlie recruit or whatever.  I'm 99% sure they were not joking.  Putting the silliness of all that aside, this manifestation of denial is particularly ironic, because it was the coach they are defending that made these horrible hires in the first place and will of course be tasked with hiring replacements. Yep, we'll be all set.  

2) The sad thing is that we've been through this so many times, that I'd bet 90% or more of fans have just skipped straight to step 4, because they know how this all ends and cycle begins anew. They are ready for step 5 though!! 

There are of course the holdouts still stuck in step 1, and you can see their posts litter the board as we speak. I'm not sure if toward them I feel pity or envy though. It would be nice to still believe.   

I went step 4, to step 4. 
 

it’s depressing to stay depressed.

[pch 1259]

3 hours ago, DFW Horn said:

Prose worthy of Dan Jenkins and Bud Shrake.

Bravo, sir, but I don't see the Indifference stage. After 12 years, I went ahead and skipped Depression altogether. Fuck it. There's golf to be played. 

I was thinking of their mentor, Blackie Sherrod.  This certainly has the earmarks of something those magical wordsmiths would have penned in their prime.

https://unclemikesmusings.blogspot.com/2016/05/blackie-sherrod-1919-2016.html

[MrBig 5289]

1. Give the kids a lot of credit. -Mack

2. Just gotta go out there and execute. -Charlie

3. Winning is Hard. -Tom

4. Extraordinary juggernaut. -Horns Illustrated

5. Hit me up @ Twitter so we can get your churros back at concessions. -CDC

 

[Doc Reeves 6434]

8 hours ago, Eugene11 said:

You mean, kind of like like you just did? 

 

 

[TxTower 650]

Pretty sure theres another stage in there somewhere that involves a Stripper Pole and a Monkey.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[VaLonghorn99 340]

I have seen Ricky win the Heisman 

I have seen BCS wins against tOSU, Michigan

I have seen an NC after a bunch of Holiday Bowls

It's been a painful decade, but as a fan I keep the hope.

[perfectchaos007 6596]

3 hours ago, VaLonghorn99 said:

I have seen Ricky win the Heisman 

I have seen BCS wins against tOSU, Michigan

I have seen an NC after a bunch of Holiday Bowls

It's been a painful decade, but as a fan I keep the hope.

It's the hope that kills ya

[The Triple Lindy 56]

12 hours ago, perfectchaos007 said:

It's the hope that kills ya