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No medal for Coach K


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Coming off a 107-100 win over Spain in the gold medal game of the 2012 London Olympics, some questions arise about whether the Olympic's are correct for not giving Coach K a medal with his team.

 

Source: Yahoo Sports

 

Mike Krzyzewski coached Team USA to a gold medal at the Olympics. He watched proudly as his 12 players stood on the podium to receive the medals. Will Coach K get one too?

 

No. Despite the picture above, only competitors receive gold medals at the Olympics. Coaches receive nothing from the IOC (In 2008 the players put their gold medal on Coach K as a show of their appreciation).

 

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/.k809uJny7nODkxfeiMC5g--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusolyexperts/AP08082408767.jpg

 

It makes sense if you think about it. Giving a medal to the head coach of team sports like basketball, soccer and volleyball would open the floodgates and create a number of questions. Would the courtesy extend to individual coaches? If so, Bob Bowman, the coach of Michael Phelps, would have 22 medals. Would assistants also get them too? What about team doctors or injured players?

 

The easy parallel to make is coaches getting championship rings in professional and college sports. But that's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Championship rings aren't officially sanctioned rewards. Team owners and athletic departments pay for those, not the NFL or NCAA.

 

What are your thoughts on this?

 

I can see it both ways. I mean yea, Coach K didnt really 'play' to earn himself a medal but on the other side of things, he was the coach who was on the floor with them through their gold medal run.

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My understanding is that for most of the last 100 or so years any kind of recognition for coaches had largely been an American phenomena. It wasn't until the last 20 or 30 years that football (soccer) coaches globally became stars in their own rights and that is pretty common for most other global sports as well.

 

Of course this comes from various things I've read in American media over the last several years so it isn't necessarily accurate.

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Exactly. I can't imagine any Olympic athlete that doesn't have a coach and none of them get medals either.

 

The real question here, is why do equestrian riders get the medal and not the horse?

 

They probably try to eat it.

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Its bull crap man but i guess the system will never be fair. In my opnion if you coach basketball, soccer, volleyball, water polo, and any other sports where it is a team you as a coach mean more than one coach coaching one swimmer. If you coach a team you deserve a medal its not as easy as it looks.

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