Steve Christilaw: Coaching role as a family figure is growing

There’s a lot to be said for style.

Style is good. Style is what keeps Fifth Avenue in business. It sells magazines and fuels an entire industry.

But as anyone who has ever looked in my closet, and I don’t recommend that to anyone, styles change. Hemlines go up and down and lapels go out and back in. And don’t get me started on neckties unless you want to hear a rant about how unfair GQ is to plum paisley.

In the end, it’s substance that really matters.

Just like hemlines and lapels, coaching styles have evolved over the years.

Some, thankfully, have gone the way of polyester.

Folks my age grew up on stories about how tough the great coaches were. The old Pac-10 was filled with stories about just how grueling practices at Arizona State were under Frank Kush, and Bear Bryant’s training camp at Junction, Texas, while he was a coach at Texas A&M, has taken on mythic proportions for its brutality.

Some coaches explored just how tough, physically and emotionally, they could be on players. Tear them down, the thought process went, and what gets rebuilt will be stronger and better reflect the qualities the coach values.

Water breaks? That makes players weak. Concussion protocol? Never heard of it – just shake it off and get back in there. No blood, no foul.

It was a one-size-fits-all philosophy. Thankfully, it’s gone the way of Bryant’s houndstooth hat.

A lot of old, deeply-held concepts about athletes and how to coach them have been buried and we are better for it.

There are moments when you can see just how far we’ve come, and it’s a satisfying vista.

Instead of using a cookie cutter, coaches work from the inside out – finding a kernel of fire within each player and coaxing it to blossom into a flame.

We’re all different, and what motivates me to perform my best doesn’t necessarily work for you.

One of the best parts of covering a game at West Valley is seeing a familiar face in the football press box.

Lorin Carlon is a spotter for the school’s PA announcer. He watches the game and points out which player made the tackle or recovered the fumble. Now in his eighth decade, his eyes are still young and spry and he doesn’t miss much, if anything.

As a coach, he provided the girls basketball program with stability it so desperately needed after an unhealthy string of one-and-done coaching tenures. And he did it with a coaching style so unlike the aforementioned old school as you could get.

Carlon was an unabashed grandfather, and he treated his players the same way he treated his own grands. He loved them. If they messed up a little, he loved them a little more.

And the team flourished.

Rick Giampietri was much the same way with the Central Valley football team. He was demanding, sure. But players don’t like to disappoint their grandpa.

Same is true for a great many area coaches in myriad ways.

Friday night, West Valley put a shellacking on Pullman in a Great Northern League football showdown.

Craig Whitney took over the Eagles when winning a football game was something the program attempted to do on an annual basis. Sometimes they even managed to accomplish that goal.

Under his tenure they have played for state championships, and last year they were undefeated before falling to the eventual state champion in the Class 2A semifinals.

Beating Pullman is a big deal at West Valley. No matter the year, no matter the standings. The Greyhounds and Eagles measure themselves against one another. So after a win like that you’d expect to see Whitney savoring the victory, shaking hands and sharing hugs with family and friends on the field before heading inside for a postgame rah-rah with his players.

Nope.

There he was, his arms full of gear, heading at a brisk pace for the door.

Oh sure, he’d dissect the game when asked a question, but his eyes kept darting toward the gate.

“I’m trying to get out of here,” he admitted. “We’re jumping in the car and heading for Montana.”

Of course.

“We’re heading for Bozeman to watch Connor play.”

Connor Whitney, the coach’s son, is a freshman tight end for the Idaho Vandals, where he’s already caught seven passes, one for a touchdown. Against the Bobcats, he pulled in one pass for 11 yards and Idaho lost to Montana State on a missed extra point.

In a nutshell, this is what’s new in coaching athletes.

Coaches’ kids have always played for their parents. There are coaches who have had their grandkids play for them. What’s different now is that many coaches make it a point to have their players see them being a parent.

Coaches have always been role models.

Now, they’re even more so.