Coaches come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and degrees of polarization. Last week, I took up this space talking about how boring Packer head coach Mike McCarthy is. In the same couple of days, New York Jets coach Rex Ryan donned blonde locks and added some padding to his belly (which is already sufficiently padded) to make fun of his brother, Rob, who is the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns—the Jets' opponent last Sunday.
McCarthy wouldn't be caught dead with a smile in a press conference, let alone in an attention-grabbing get-up like that. Still, both coaches are leading football teams with serious post-season aspirations.
Here in Madison, we have pretty good diversity of our own when it comes to head coaches in revenue sports. We have the hand-selected heir attempting to make his own mark in Bret Bielema (football), the statesman heading up a powerhouse program in Mike Eaves (men's hockey) and the vociferous system coach whose philosophies would likely survive nuclear fallout in Bo Ryan (men's basketball).
These guys have all had—and should continue to have—success at Wisconsin, and they've each done it very differently from the other two.
A similarity between Bielema and Eaves struck me earlier in the fall, however, and as basketball season ramped up over the last couple weeks, Ryan has followed step.
All three men seem to handle freshman with potential to make an immediate impact in a similar way.
Bielema got the first crack at it during the football team's fall camp, when anybody who saw practice couldn't help but notice the performance of freshman running back James White.
Bielema never heaped praise on the Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., native. When asked, he would use words like special and potential, but always qualified it with a reminder of White's lack of game experience or failure to pick up a blitz in practice.
However, even when the words did not come off as gushing, anybody in the same room as Bielema could tell he thought he had a special talent on his hands. Turns out, he was right. All White has done in his first ten games in college is lead the Big Ten in yards per rush, cause elite college defenders to miss seemingly routine tackles and make a case for Big Ten Freshman of the Year and Freshman All-American honors.
Eaves' situation is a little different, since everybody knew his 10-man freshman class would have to hit the ground running after losing so many players to graduation and the professional ranks. Eaves fielded plenty of questions about his young guns, but the way he talked about freshman forward Mark Zengerle is eerily similar to Bielema and White.
He would speak of intangibles, un-teachable skills and natural ability, but never give into parental-grade praise or unreasonable expectations. Still, the look in Eaves' eye gave away his excitement and his actions—Zengerle has skated on UW's top line all season—confirm his thinking. Like White, Zengerle is turning in a sparkling rookie campaign, leading the team with 16 points—a scoring rate few Badger rookies have produced.
White is well-established at this point and Zengerle is not far behind, so adding freshman guard Josh Gasser to this list is definitely premature. However, Ryan has addressed the play of the Port Washington, Wis., native similarly to the way Bielema and Eaves talked about their young guns. After Gasser scored 21 points against Prairie View A&M Sunday, Ryan commended his play but also singled out his defensive struggles.
Recently, Ryan told reporters that Gasser is a player people will enjoy watching for four years. That may seem like an innocent statement, but if Ryan is downplaying his excitement—which seems likely considering Gasser finished third on the team in minutes played with 26, behind only Jon Leuer and Jordan Taylor—we might just have a trio of fantastic freshmen on campus.
Which freshman are you most excited about? Let Parker know at pjgabriel@dailycardinal.com
