Kingsbury in Esquire is Fine, But His Interview With The Duds is the Bestest

Yesterday Esquire had this bit from HC Kliff Kingsbury about how he dresses. And it's great and all because I love this stuff and when Kingsbury was first hired, I decided that I would pattern my attire after Kingsbury. I have numerous pairs of cut-off sweats and a close full of v-necks. The reaction of some is something like, "I don't care! Just effing coach the damned team!" This sorta sounds like folks complaining about Tuberville going to his kids football games or Leach doing the weather or talking about Geronimo. There were people, fans, complaining. "That Leach needs to coach football games and not be doing bits on the weather!" "That Tuberville needs to spend his Friday nights thinking about coaching, not watching his kids!"

All coaches are going to have their things that they do that will annoy fans. It's part of the job. If they lose a game, then they aren't allowed to have any downtime. The truth of the matter is that we all need something to take our mind away from the rigors of real life. You needs this and so does Kingsbury. It's fine and don't worry about it. If Kingsbury can't coach, then this won't matter. If he can, then you better be ready to embrace it because it's awesome.

As to the Esquire article, I do think that it was heavily editorialized, sorta like this interview where I do believe that there MAY have been some added exclamation marks. Not sure, about that. Just making a guess. So this was great because this really doesn't sound like Kingsbury at all:

When I started dressing how I wanted, a few of the older coaches made comments. But as long as you're doing your job successfully, those comments stop pretty quickly. I think they thought I was being a young punk, trying to be cute, but in no way was that the case. I was just trying to be comfortable by wearing what I thought looked right. Whether you are Bayern Munich's Pep Guardiola, who has the best game-day attire in the world, the one wearing the skinny tie on the sidelines; or Bill Belichick sporting the cut-off sweatshirt, you want to be consistent in who you are. You get only 12 game days a year. It's a big deal.

If this was really true, you know, that you only get 12 games a year, then Kingsbury would have been 1970's Elvis with a fantastic outfit each and every game. But that's not the case. He wore the same thing every game. If he really cared, he would totally changed it up, ya know?

Why do I think this was editorialized? It's because I've read every single one of Kingsbury's press conferences and it's not how he talks. I've also read the interview from The Duds and THAT sounds like Kingsbury answering questions. This is a real deal, un-editorialized Kingsbury interview (thank you so much The Duds, Seth C really loves y'all).

This is Kingsbury:

Do you think Meryl Streep could play you in your biopic?
She'd kill it.

Karaoke song of choice?
Shai-If I Ever Fall in Love

Which Goonie do you most identify with?
Mouth.

Which Golden Girl do you most identify with?
Blanche.

What’s Wes Welker doing at this very second?
Counting all his money.

You can tell the difference, right? One is marginalized and editorialized to the point where it's not even really the coach I'm pretty sure I know, while the other is as accurate as the day is long. We as fans need to be smarter than that mess with Esquire and not let it bother us.

No matter what, whether a coach is doing the weather, or going to his kids' high school football games or being interviewed in Esquire, I think we as fans need to let coaches be people. Coaching robots aren't any fun. And your response is most likely, "Well, I'd rather having a coaching robot like Nick Saban and win than these coaching bits." And you're right. Everyone would love Saban because he is a coaching terminator. But there's only one of him and everyone else is just trying to catch up. It's okay to let coaches have their things that interest them. It's okay to let them have personalities. Otherwise, this game that we love is a lot less fun. It's okay to have fun.