Hipple Long Ware & Peete
Footballguy
whoa. long read. But It's weird to have a guy who blatantly tells you that he only believes half of the stuff he says and that the rest is part of the insanity that is required to motivate the exceptional athlete to greatness. Very interesting read.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. —Todd Haley is angry today. He's stomping around the practice field, calling names and hurling insults.
Quarterback Tyler Palko is in the coach's crosshairs.
"Why in the hell did you throw that ball, Tyler?" Haley barks. "Unless you're dumb."
The practice is sloppy. Haley is trying to get control. Then cornerback Brandon Carr gives up on a play against 32-year-old running back Thomas Jones.
"He's a 50-year-old running back!" Haley yells toward Carr, referring to Jones.
The practice eventually improves, and the Chiefs' second-year coach calms himself. On a day not unlike most others, when mistakes are made and criticism is doled out by the bucketful, Haley spends his morning moving between personalities. Later, Haley's angry and merciless Mr. Hyde slips back into Dr. Jekyll in a Chiefs hat — calm, measured and occasionally self-deprecating.
"This," he says, "was a glass-half-full day as far as I'm concerned."
The good doctor stands in a crowded hallway as the nervous patients pass, players moving from the locker room to wherever they're headed, careful not to say or do anything to send Haley spinning toward the unsteady madman within.
"Excuse me, Coach," one player says meekly, and Haley glares at him anyway.
The player passes, and Haley's face relaxes, a smile forcing its way through when the youngster is out of sight.
"Some of that is contrived," he admits. He is firmly the doctor now. His voice is low, and his eyes suggest that his words are honest.
He says that, yes, the maniacal coach routine is a character he plays when the situation calls for it. And he acknowledges that, at least last year, some players in that locker room tuned him out when Mr. Hyde showed himself. Others paid no attention. Haley says many of those players are no longer with the Chiefs.
"I don't know if they liked us last year," says Maurice Carthon, the assistant head coach and one of Haley's closest friends, "because when you're cracking that whip, you're not going to have everybody."
Veteran guard Brian Waters was caught off guard with the initial cracks of Haley's whip. Waters didn't immediately understand the gruff and dictatorial approach, and he reportedly asked to be traded or released last year after a fiery meeting with his coach. But more than a year later, Waters has made peace with Haley, the lineman saying now that they've since established mutual respect.
"He's got a job to do; I've got a job to do," Waters says. "He's got to make statements. I've got to deal with it.
"I have to respect the fact that he's a head coach. It's a very tough job. I think he respects what I've done in the past, and I respect how hard he's had to work to get to where he got."
Waters says that respect didn't happen immediately. He says that's impossible. Waters says that Haley earned the team's respect last season not by yelling or with profanity-filled practices, but by delivering on promises. One of those promises was that, after establishing an attitude last season, there wouldn't be so much tension in Year 2.
And although it's early, and optimism for 2010 remains, Haley has been less boisterous during practices, even when players make mistakes. He says that the verbal abuse last year was, as he insists is the case for most of his decisions and actions, done with plenty of thought; part of a large-scale plan that called for a culture change — and plenty of anger and occasional public humiliation — that he says was necessary.
"I don't know that there was any way around it. I really don't," he says. "There had to be some chaos. There had to be some bullets flying. This entire building needed a wake-up call. And you don't wake up when the alarm is soft."
The problem with Dr. Jekyll was that Mr. Hyde eventually overtook him. Reason and science couldn't keep up, and the lunatic was all that was left of the desperate doctor.
Haley says that he remains in control of himself, but as the losing seasons mount in Kansas City, the line between Haley's inner personalities continues to blur. Even now, in that corridor at the team's Truman Sports Complex, Haley has trouble determining whether, deep down, he is more like the composed and laid-back man who addresses reporters, or the disheveled and unpredictable coach who emerged so often last year after forgettable games.
"Good question," he says, and he takes a moment before he continues. "I know I care. I know I'm intense. And that goes off the field also. That's been coached into me, and part of it was there.
"You have to show people around here that you care enough to work your ### off. That's your job."
Haley says he cares so much that he leaves the field sometimes with a recurring thought: that he's going to be fired. If things go poorly, or the Chiefs lose, or a decision backfires, or a player fumbles during a key possession — Haley assumes that the worst will soon happen and that he'll soon be stripped of the most high-profile job of his career.
He says it's been that way since he was a youngster, mowing lawns in his native Pittsburgh for $20 a pop. If he cut corners or left a mess, then he'd leave thinking that he wouldn't be invited back. So he refused to leave a yard that he wasn't proud of.
He carried that same intensity into football, when he was the young coach speaking his mind — and sometimes out of turn — during meetings. His first coaching boss, Bill Parcells, would recoil, asking who this young kid was — and why was he talking back in this room full of elders?
"He's been that way ever since I've ever known him," says Carthon, who worked with Haley on Parcells' staff with the New York Jets. "I think everybody liked him, liked his energy."
Then again....
"Some guys got pissed," he says. "You can't change what you are."
Last year, as Haley was trying to establish order and discipline within an organization that lacked both, he occasionally clashed with players and assistant coaches. He bickered with Carthon, and television cameras caught it. Carthon laughs now, but he wasn't laughing then.
"Todd is like a brother to me," Carthon says. "That's where we've been."
The madman was overtaking that calm youngster, reducing him to faded memories and those occasions the good doctor remains part of the plan, when reason shows it's still buried somewhere deep.
"Hopefully," Haley says, "a couple of years down the road, I'm saying: 'I was a screaming banshee for a reason in '09. There was a purpose, and everybody could think I was crazy. That was all right. That was all right for that year.' "
Haley strolls into the media room at team headquarters and flashes a smile. Whatever happened on this day, it was enough to muffle the anger. There were no on-field blowups, no post-practice arguments.
Carthon says it's because his friend and boss is more comfortable in his skin than he was a year ago. More comfortable because that's the way it is in Year 2, regardless of the job, regardless of the employee.
"He knows this team," Carthon says. "This is his team."
Some say Haley took control when he cut troubled running back Larry Johnson midway through last season. Others say it happened when the Chiefs finally won a handful of games after starting 0-5 in 2009, and Haley's way was reaffirmed when Kansas City upset the Broncos in Denver to end the season.
But Waters says it was more gradual than that. He says he was watching his coach last season. Watching his actions and listening to his words. He says it takes time for a coach to earn his team's respect — and have it listen to his words, regardless of how those words are delivered.
"If your words match your actions," Waters says, "that's the fastest way to earn respect as a coach. One thing about being in the professional game, where it's men: men respect other men who do what they say they're going to do. On a daily basis, it has to be earned.
"Hopefully guys don't get too offended."
After his daily address to reporters, Haley walks through a doorway and stops. He says he hopes that this year is better than last. Calmer and with more victories. Then, he says, perhaps others will understand his approach, and why Haley sometimes has to become someone else — no matter who he really is deep down.
"Well," he imagines his players saying, "we thought this guy was an... , and then we realized that he cared, and he cared about us winning. That's all he cared about."
Cut-down day — The Chiefs announced their intentions with regard Jarrad Page months ago when they drafted Eric Berry and Kendrick Lewis to take his place at safety.
The only thing left to be determined was a destination for Page. They found one for him Saturday when they traded him to New England for an undisclosed draft pick.
The Chiefs made 15 other roster moves. They released 13 players, including quarterback Tyler Palko. That leaves them for the moment with only Matt Cassel and Brodie Croyle at quarterback, though it's possible they could add another quarterback before they reconvene for practice on Monday.
The others released: offensive linemen Colin Brown, Darryl Harris and Bobby Greenwood, running back Javarris Williams, wide receiver Verran Tucker, defensive linemen Derek Lokey, Garrett Brown and Dion Gales, linebackers David Herron and Pierre Walters and defensive backs DaJuan Morgan and Ricky Price.
The 53-player roster is heavy with linebackers and defensive backs. The Chiefs retained 10 players at both position groups.
Page's time with the Chiefs ended predictably. A former starter at safety, Page clashed with coach Todd Haley last season.
By signing the contract, Page forced the Chiefs to move him. They had prepared for the eventuality, drafting Berry in the first round and Lewis in the fifth. The Chiefs also have Jon McGraw, Donald Washington and Reshard Langford at safety.
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2010/09/05/1479340/c...l#ixzz0N3bE3usF
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