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By: TonV. |
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| I have an hour or so to kill and I am feeling bored so I decided to finally
write this little piece that I have been meaning to put together for a
long time. Feel free to disagree with anything we say, but this represents
our considered opinion. Within the Admirals fan community there has been a discussion going for years now. Actually, discussion is a wrong word here… There have basically been three groups: one group who insist that Luginbill is a bad coach and should have been sacked ages ago, one group who insist Luginbill is a very good coach and the third (majority) group of fans who are blissfully unaware of this whole division. The Trench Crew have always been part of the second group. Luginbill was a very good coach and it was a great pity to see him leave. I will give the main reasons that I have heard from the anti-Luginbill camp along with our rebuttal of those reasons. After that, I will present a few more reasons why we believe Luginbill was a good coach. "Amsterdam never won a World Bowl" - Gosh. If every coach who never won a final in his / her sport was considered bad, then there are very very few good coaches. How many coaches in first division soccer ever won the championship? How many NFL coaches ever won the Super Bowl? Do they get sacked because of this? "Luginbill lost a lot of games" - Especially near the end of last season, every loss was taken as an opportunity to vent anti-Luginbill comments. But this argument is not only silly, it is simply wrong. Of the 60 regular season matches that the Admirals played under Luginbill, 34 were won, 26 were lost. Compare this to the other teams that have been playing since 1995: Galaxy 33 wins, 27 losses. Dragons 31 wins, 29 losses. Fire 34 wins, 26 losses. Claymores 26 wins, 34 losses. Luginbill has lead the Admirals to the shared number 1 spot in wins! I can only assume that all the white handkerchief waving people either have really short memories or got spoiled by all the good results in the past… I dread to think what would happen in Amsterdam if we ever have a season with 8 losses like the Claymores have seen twice. The worst we ever experienced was 'only' 4 wins in a season. "Luginbill doesn't give our nationals a fair chance" - Sorry, but I can only see this as a point in his favor. Unfortunately, the Dutch football nationals are not on the same level as the American players or even as most of the German nationals. American Football is simply still too small in Holland. We have ten times as many cricket players here than we do footballers for heaven's sake! Luginbill wanted to have the best team he can and if this meant snubbing national pride, then that's what he'd do. I wonder if people would have whined more when Luginbill didn't win as many games as he did because of playing more nationals… "Luginbill made Frank Temming quit" - First off: we respect Frank Temming as a sportsman. He has been one of the oldest standing nationals in the league and is probably the best Dutch football player we have. However, he is not a football professional. He said so himself in an interview, when he mentioned how football was more of a hobby for him than the 'job' it is for the Americans. I'm sorry, but if that is your attitude then how can you demand to be treated exactly like the pros? He also said that he'd only return if Luginbill was gone. But this season with Luginbill gone, he has decided to go for his boxing career instead. Fine, it is his choice and I really wish him all the best. But it is rather typical for Temming as a pro-football player. These four arguments are the main ones I remember from the anti-Luginbill side. Now for a few points in his favor: "Luginbill was highly motivated" - Nobody can deny that Luginbill lived and breathed football. He loved (and I assume still does) the sport and was incredibly motivated to get the best results. His rants at the players during a particular bad performance are legendary around the league. Not everyone might agree with this coaching style, but it did prove that he really cared about what he was doing. "Luginbill brought excitement to the league" - A lot of fans from other teams know Luginbill for his emotional coaching style. How many of us Admirals fans can remember anything typical about Jim Criner? Or Jack Bicknell? Luginbill was a real 'character' in the league, just like his wife Suzie. "Luginbill wins matches" - Probably repeating myself now, but Luginbill took the Admirals to the number 1 spot in regular season wins over all six seasons so far. A spot only shared by the Fire. Now in his first season in the XFL he took his LA Xtreme to the final (while I write this, the final has not yet been played, he could even win it). A bad coach loses a hell of a lot more games than Luginbill ever did. "Other team's fans don't understand why Luginbill would be a bad coach either" - This might be coincidence, since we obviously talk to only a tiny part of the fans of other teams, but we do tend to hang around the most active fans, ie: the ones who are most involved with football. None so far have understood why Luginbill is a bad coach. A lot have no opinion either way, but quite a lot actually think he is one of the best coaches in the league. At the last game in Dusseldorf in 2000, one Admirals fan was walking around with a placard saying something along the lines of 'Luginbill go home'. A couple of Fire fans asked me on several occasions what the sign was for. They all were really confused… Like I said before: feel free to disagree with us. It's a free country after all, but we give Luginbill four shovels and a trowel. Had he won a World Bowl then it would have been the full five. For an explanation of the Trench Crew shovel rating, see this editorial. |
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