Sports Talk: Counter-Subconscious-Espionage and Other Football Coaching Tactics
[Guest post by DRJ]
Texas A&M University football Coach Dennis Franchione has been in hot water recently because of his VIP Connection newsletter available to select supporters who each paid $1,200 a year for their insider subscriptions.
I didn’t plan to post on this topic for several reasons. First, I am that rare University of Texas fan who likes and supports all Texas colleges including A&M. Second, I don’t like to hit a guy when he’s down. Third, it wasn’t that big a story to me … until I read the August 13 newsletter excerpt that mentioned a coaching tactic called “counter-subconscious-espionage.”
From ESPN, here’s an excerpt from the August 13 newsletter:
“TOTAL MUM ON THIS. [Omitted by DRJ]
***
(In reference to a presentation by Walt Anderson, the Big 12’s head of officials, at the league’s media day):“Coach Fran likes Walt and thinks he was a great hire (Coach was on the search committee that selected him), but was planning to let Walt know he’s a little miffed at him right now. At the Big 12 Media Days, Anderson handed out a DVD with actual game footage on it that illustrated various calls last season — mostly good calls, with explanations why they were good when fans and media might have thought they were not. But he also included a few calls that he said were “bad calls.”
“One of them was Michael Bennett’s hit on t.u. quarterback Colt McCoy on a sack. Anderson told reporters in the room, ‘He should have thrown a flag on that one.’ Our administration was steamed about that and let it be known, and Fran gets a little hot thinking about it. …
“STILL JUST AMONG US: He also told a story about another official whose daughter goes to A&M. He had made a few calls (or no-calls) that went against us, and not what Fran considered good judgments. He’s an official that Fran respects and thinks is very good. So he told him one time that he thought perhaps the official was subconsciously not trying to appear biased about A&M. He said the official didn’t like what he said, but the plan was counter-subconscious espionage; get the official to think subconsciously about what he might be thinking about subconsciously…well, you get the gist.”
Once I figure out exactly how this works, I might try some counter-subconscious-espionage here.
— DRJ
Alfie and the ilk have been doing that counter-subconscious espionage for some time now… it used to be called an LSD induced hallucination back in the day.
Nowadays the definition seems to have been refined to “truth”.
Seems a bit of a stretch…
Does shouting 1,2.3,4 we don’t want your fucking war make me a progressive or a fossil?
Anyway.
SteveG (4e16fc) — 10/12/2007 @ 10:35 pmEveryone knows that football is a warmongers wet dream perpetuated by the military industrial complex formerly known as the birthplace of Napalm, and now known as Blackwater/Halliburton and fueled by beer… formerly Pabst and Budweiser, now known as Coors.
Remember when Coors was cool, not “right wing Adolf nazi’s dressed up as american businessmen”?
So UT is playing Texas A&M. A train passes near and blows its whistle. Texas A&M thinks the game is over and walks off the field. Fifteen minutes later UT scores a touchdown.
nk (6e4f93) — 10/12/2007 @ 10:44 pmNK,
Heh. I love that joke. In the Aggie version, the punch line goes like this: “Fifteen minutes later A&M scores a field goal.”
DRJ (74c23b) — 10/12/2007 @ 10:49 pmYes, that’s a better punchline.
nk (6e4f93) — 10/12/2007 @ 11:08 pmWhat kills me is that people paid $1200 for the privilege to read this tripe.
Pure speculation and shallow gossip like this is why I don’t watch or listen to pre-game shows anymore.
Paul (983476) — 10/13/2007 @ 4:06 amIt makes sense; he just miswrote it. He wants the official to think CONciously about what he may have been thinking SUBCONciously.
The mistake was writing “get the official to think subconsciously” when he meant consciously.
Where’s my $1200?
tom (1af086) — 10/13/2007 @ 6:14 amMy version of the joke goes something like…
“it’s fourth down, the whistle blows, A&M leaves the field, and Texas throws an incomplete pass in the end zone”….
I too am a big supporter of the idea that you should support the “State Schools” when you support one school…but I ran into the opposite at a recent visit to Texas A&M for the UL Monroe game….Texas was playing Central Florida on the tube, and the A&M fans sitting around watching were cheering on UCF, applauding every UT mistake….it was ridiculous….and I was amazed…as a big LSU fan, who also went to Tulane, there were always the rare fans who were so gung-ho for their school that it caused a problem, but it was always a friendly rivalry, and nearly everyone understood the need for both schools to do well….
But what I witnessed at T-A&M was a joke to the state of Texas…
reff (4e3fcd) — 10/13/2007 @ 7:35 am. . . get the official to think subconsciously about what he might be thinking about subconsciously…well, you get the gist.”
Hmm. I wonder if I could use that technique on my wife. 😉
Stu707 (adbb5a) — 10/13/2007 @ 8:10 amOh…and as an official, one who works on the NCAA D-1 level, when a coach begins to work the reverse psyc techniques, it only makes good officals work harder to get the call right. All officials go through that, and we all talk about it so we are aware of all the “techniques” for being worked by a coach.
It also shows the weaknesses in the hiring practices of conferences for supervisors of officials….when a head coach at a school is on the selection committee….what a conflict of interests that must appear to be….
reff (4e3fcd) — 10/13/2007 @ 8:49 amWhen I was growing up back in the transition from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon (or vice-versa – it was a long time ago and I forget), the joke was a game between the Mexicans and Poles (I think they, the Poles, were Jewish as ELA was called Hollenbeck) for bragging rights in East LA. Pick either side for the winner – also listen to early Bob Newhart comedy record for related joke.
Another Drew (a28ef4) — 10/13/2007 @ 9:50 amMy subconscious thinking has taken a conscious turn towards counter-subconscious unconsciousness, I thinking….
I can’t believe anyone would pay good money (or even funny money) for that pap.
Bill M (42fd61) — 10/13/2007 @ 10:10 am