For The Losing Lockerroom, Silence Is Golden

Phil Linz, the old Yankee from the 1960's, used to play harmonica. How well he played it, I don't know. But he brought it with him everywhere - including on road trips and on the team bus to and from the airport.

One day, after a tough series in which the Yanks were swept, Linz started playing the harmonica on the bus heading back to catch a plane. Someone from the front of the bus, where the star players sat, told Linz to stop. This was to be no time to play a happy-sounding instrument like a harmonica, Linz was told. Better to play an organ funereally, apparently. But Linz didn't stop, and after some exchanging of words, he almost had to have his harmonica surgically removed from his posterior.

Soon afterward, Phil Linz was traded away. He maintained the harmonica incident planted the seeds for his cashiering.


Phil Linz's autographed harmonica


There used to be a decorum about how one was supposed to act after losing a game. Most old-school folks will tell you that only a pin dropping should be heard in the loser's lockerroom. No joking, no smiling. Everyone should act as if their pet dog had just been given away.

I remember being in the Red Wings' dressing room - they are "dressing rooms" in hockey - after a win, and players yukked it up and the music was going and everyone was ribbing each other playfully. Players spoke into the microphones and to the note-taking pens in a relaxed, almost puckish - no pun intended - manner. The postgame food spread was being briskly attacked.

Then, a few weeks later, I was there again, but this time the Wings had lost.

The only reason it was 180 degrees different was because it couldn't be 190 - at least not mathematically. No music. Players walked around with frowns on their faces. Everyone dressed in silence. This was in the 1980's, when the Red Wings didn't do a lot of winning. So they must have had one of the quietest dressing rooms in the league.

And tempers run shorter after a loss. Marc Spindler, when he played defensive tackle for the Lions, was asked after losing to the Bears, "Do you think the team came out flat?"

"FLAT! What does that mean, FLAT? I don't know where you guys come up with this stuff. FLAT. What does that even mean? I'm so sick of hearing that - FLAT. What do you mean, did we come out FLAT? You wanna know what happened? They kicked our ass - that's what happened!"

Spindler now makes a living talking into a microphone on WXYT sports talk radio. But his vocabulary has improved since his playing days.


Spindler (center): Don't talk about being "flat" to him


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Coaches are perhaps some of the most self-abused men in the world.
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America doesn't tolerate losers. And not just in sports - anywhere in life. And American sports fans better not see even a grin on the face of a player whose team is on the short end of the scoreboard.

"What's HE smiling about? His team is losing!"

No, you'd better have the look of a pallbearer if you're losing, and afterward, you must act as if you are a last meal away from the electric chair.

"I want guys who hate to lose," more than one coach has said. "No laughing or joking after a loss. I want them to despise losing."

That's fine, but have you ever been to a wake, and even the next of kin is laughing and joking?

You can't be sullen all of the time.


Bowman: one of hockey's greatest poker faces


Some coaches take the stone face to the next level. Scotty Bowman, when he coached the Red Wings, was so wooden that you had absolutely no clue, by looking at him, whether his team was winning or losing. Others are still up and yelling and screaming, even if their team is winning handily with little time remaining.

"This is a crazy business," Earl Lloyd said after his first game as Pistons coach in 1971. "You're up by 20 with four minutes remaining, and you're still nervous. I lost my voice out there."

Coaches are perhaps some of the most self-abused men in the world. They are tormented souls who would absolutely be doing nothing else with their lives, yet they put themselves through nothing short of hell in doing so.

"I remember walking off the field after a 'Big win,' and I wasn't even to the tunnel, and I started thinking about the next game," Cowboys coach Bill Parcells said years ago when he was with the Giants. "That's just the way we are."

"I don't remember any of the wins," Dan Henning said while he was coaching the San Diego Chargers, "but I remember every loss."

You still doubt that they're tormented?

The Tigers clubhouse - they're clubhouses in baseball - was a mess last season. Some of the antics that were pulled were childish, but they were also taking place because manager Alan Trammell provided fertile ground for such nonsense. Among the accusations was the notion that not always did the players treat losing with its proper sadness. The same has been said about the Lions and their players' quarters: Not enough disdain for losing. Such behavior has positively mortified some veterans who have come here from other teams, and who are mystified by the casual acceptance of losing in the Lions' den.

Steve Mariucci, Alan Trammell, and Dave Lewis are no longer coaching in Detroit because they were that dreaded "nice guy." None of them were prone to cracking the whip on their charges, and while they may have been well-liked, they were not always well-respected. Former Canadiens forward Bob Gainey said of Bowman, "You hate him for 364 days of the year, then on the 365th day, you pick up your Stanley Cup."

But it all runs in cycles for the losing franchises: Fire the nice guy. Hire a disciplinarian. Fire the disciplinarian. Hire another nice guy. Fire the another nice guy. Hire a no-nonsense type. Fire the no-nonsense type, for it's time for a looser goose.

Right now the Lions, Tigers, and Red Wings aren't in looser goose mode. They are all in the tough guy/disciplinarian/no-nonsense guy boat. Where losing won't be tolerated, and everyone better walk around like they are next for the executioner's noose.

Oh, if losing could only be solved with a sour puss.