by Douglas Macgregor, Douglas Macgregor:
When will Americans demand higher standards from its battlefield coaches?
Americans love football.
We even postpone wars to watch the Super Bowl. In 1991, the start of OPERATION DESERT STORM was delayed so Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines could watch the Super Bowl.
Americans expect the home team to win, and hardcore fans do not tolerate losers, period. Pittsburgh Steelers’ Coach Mike Tomlin epitomizes the NFL’s winning standard. Tomlin won Super Bowl XLIII at age 36, and pushed the Steelers’ franchise to 22 consecutive winning seasons. This was not good enough.
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After two decades of winning, when Tomlin departed the field for his final game in Pittsburg a hailstorm of boos rained down from the bleachers. The veteran coach said “When you don’t get it done, words are cheap,” and his experience is not unique in the NFL, it is the standard. Tomlin failed to deliver another Super Bowl so pressure mounted on him to step down.
“Mike T. has had more success than damn near anybody in the league for the last 19, 20 years. And more than that, though, when you have the right guy and the culture is right, you don’t think about making a change, but there’s a lot of pressure that comes from the outside, and obviously that sways decisions from time to time.”
Aaron Rogers – Pittsburg Steelers Quarterback
In professional football, fans explode when they see gameday mismanagement and they demand accountability. Coaches are unceremoniously fired often at the behest of furious fan bases (“fan” short for fanatic). Paradoxically, the high standards set by NFL fans for head coaches diverges sharply from the way Americans treat General Officers where the stakes are higher because lives are on the line.
Paradoxically, the high standards set by NFL fans for head coaches diverges sharply from the way Americans treat General Officers where the stakes are higher because lives are on the line.
Win or lose, in war or peace, America’s Generals get a pass. This is unfortunate and it explains why the United States continues to lose wars. Where there are no discernible standards there is no winning, which is why America has not won a major war since WWII.
Recent American military history is an obituary of flag officer failure. After two years of inconclusive fighting in Vietnam, General Earl Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), presented LBJ’s cabinet with captured documents, bomb damage assessments, and body counts that Wheeler said proved the U.S. was winning the Vietnam War.
US Military (USM) Generals deliberately misconstrued the true state of the war. During a speaking tour across the country in 1967, General William Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, declared that American Soldiers were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel because they were killing Vietnamese Soldiers faster than North Vietnam could replace them.
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