MISSOURI WATCH: POLITICIANS, COACHES AND A DATE

Although they are seldom seen as first cousins, coaches and politicians bear a striking resemblance to each other, and the similarity is more than cosmetic.

Consider the challenge of a coach who is employed to inaugurate what will hopefully be a long string of winning seasons in football/basketball/baseball/track or whatever his specialty may be. When he's being considered for the job, the would-be record-maker assures his prospective bosses that, if they're wise enough to choose him, he can deliver them the kind of winning teams that have eluded their alma mater for perhaps the last decade, or longer. "Just give me a chance," the coach pleads, "and I'll deliver." And, in virtually every case, the applicant is convinced he can deliver. He isn't trying to deceive his employers, for he truly believes that with a little hard work, a reasonable amount of vision and a great deal of his own expertise, the teams he will field will be winners.

Consider the candidate for public office, who asks to be considered for an important office in his hometown, the state capital or even one in Washington. In this instance, his employers are the voters, and so the candidate undertakes a campaign to convince those who have the power to install him in office that he can produce a better government, a winning government. He even cites the steps he will take, once selected, that will enable him to improve the performance of the incumbent or make him superior to those lesser qualified applicants who are seeking the same job.

Lets assume that the coach who made the most convincing argument to the school board, the athletic committee or the team owners is selected on the basis of what he promised and the manner in which he ingratiated himself with the hiring authority. Once employed, the coach assures his employers that they made the correct choice and so everyone sits back to watch the new mentor strut his stuff. Of course, even before the season begins, the coach is pretty much stuck with the talent he inherited from his predecessor. If the previous coach ran a poor recruiting effort and signed only undeveloped talent, it's reasonable to assume that the only experienced athletes the new coach has inherited lost more games than they won last season. But the new coach, starting with mediocre talent and a long history of losing seasons, tries to introduce his own personality and knowledge to convert bad players into super stars. A coach with exceptional ability can inspire his team to play harder, but it takes more than words to transform a physically inept slow-learner into an All-American.

The politician, once installed in office, begins to assess his environment in much the same way as the coach. He surveys the players who were around last season and then he begins to plot the plays he must make to achieve stardom. If the veteran members have the ability to produce victories, the politician becomes a team player and hopes for some recognition of his own abilities. If, however, the members with more experience have consistently been losers in public office, the freshman is forced to live with the mediocrity he's inherited or strike out on his own and find superior talent among a limited field of newcomers. "Green or Be Seen?" is a choice the newly hired politician must initially make, and woe be to him who makes the wrong one.

Both the coach and the politician are unwitting victims of a very fickle observer of the scene, who's known to one and all as Dame Fortune, or sometimes by her street name, Lady Luck. She's neither coach nor politician, neither athlete nor season ticket holder. She merely observes the games of coaches and politicians as a disinterested spectator, neither rooting for the home team nor against it. The win-loss record of neither the coach nor the politician makes an iota of difference in her life, since her mission is to change the lives of others, not her own.

Lady Luck can bring a freshman quarterback with a passing arm like Joe Montana to the stadium or she can send him to a team outside the conference. She can provide the new politician with a cause that will soon catch the imagination of the voters or she can withhold it and award it to someone else. Her whim becomes the destiny of coach and politician alike. She once sent a Paul Christman to a new coach named Don Faurot, and she provided an opportunity to investigate crooked defense contractors to a young politician named Harry Truman. Both the coach and the politician-reaped a long string of winning seasons, thanks to a lady neither of them ever met.

The moral of the story is easily understood: Never promise more than some dame can deliver.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.