Stress for Success

Jerry Reynolds was 44 and coach of the Sacramento Kings in 1988 when he leaped to his feet to protest a referee’s call, then collapsed face-first on the court.

Unconscious for about a minute, he was rushed to the hospital. As coach of an NBA team that had won only six of its first 25 games, Reynolds hadn’t been sleeping or eating well -- he was endorsing a diet plan at the time -- and doctors said he had hyperventilated.

“I knew the next time I went down, it wouldn’t be a fainting spell, it would be the last time,” said Reynolds, who left the bench in 1990 and now works as a broadcaster and as the Kings’ director of player personnel.

“It was just an ongoing pressure-cooker in my mind,” he said. “You were always either traveling, preparing for games, or getting over games. The only way I could tell it was Sunday during the season was when there was a fat paper in front of the door.”

Stress-related health problems and debilitating pressure are nothing new in the coaching business, though recent cases have drawn attention to the increasingly relentless demands of what has become a very high-stakes profession.

Rudy Tomjanovich, 56, resigned as coach of the Lakers last week after only 43 games, saying he felt physically and emotionally “sapped” by coaching less than two years since undergoing treatment for bladder cancer and seven years after seeking treatment for alcoholism.

Rick Majerus, 56, a college coach who has had multiple heart-bypass operations and resigned from Utah at midseason last year, took the job as USC’s basketball coach in December only to resign five days later, saying he was physically fit for any job “except astronaut or coach.”

Last month, Oregon State Coach Jay John, 46, was taken to the hospital at halftime of one game and missed another because of chest pains and shortness of breath associated with high blood pressure.

And last weekend, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, 57, startled onlookers by falling to the court during a timeout, but said he had simply become lightheaded after getting up too quickly. Still, he visited his doctor.

“I got checked out, just to make sure,” said Krzyzewski, who missed most of the 1994-95 season after suffering from exhaustion when he tried to return too quickly from back surgery.

“It’s a demanding job during the season,” Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “There’s not a lot of sleep.

“You start sacrificing maybe your workout time and different other areas in order to get the job done the way you think you need to get it done. And over time, that starts chipping away at potentially your health and maybe your well-being.”

Experts agree that stress can contribute to health problems ranging from cardiovascular disease to the common cold, but they resist the idea that certain occupations -- such as police officer, medical professional, CEO or high-profile coach -- are the crucial cause of it.

“The idea that there are 10 most stressful or 10 least stressful jobs you see all the time in magazines, that’s erroneous,” said Dr. Paul J. Rosch, president of the American Institute of Stress, a nonprofit organization based in Yonkers, N.Y. “Job stress is a function of the person-environment fit. The fact is, some people thrive on life in the fast lane or pressure-cooker with a lot of responsibility -- provided they feel they’re in control of the situation.”

Dr. Jeffrey P. Kahn, a psychiatrist and chief executive of WorkPsych Associates in New York, an executive and corporate mental health consulting firm, agreed that occupation is not the only factor in stress level, saying a champion drag racer was one of the calmest people he had ever encountered.

“Our data suggests that some of the major factors that influence how stressed people feel include overwork, overly long hours, 24/7 availability, a feeling that management is not on the same team, and whether they have a propensity for common anxiety or depressive disorders,” Kahn said.

The idea that coaches are under enough duress to cause them to quit wasn’t much a part of the public consciousness until 1982, when Dick Vermeil resigned as coach of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, citing “burnout.”

Since then, the coaches who have resigned because of variations of stress, exhaustion and burnout could make up their own wing in a hall of fame. Among them are NFL coaches Joe Gibbs, Bill Walsh and Bill Parcells and former NBA coach Frank Layden. (Some who stepped down later returned, among them Vermeil, Gibbs and Parcells, all current NFL coaches.)

Wealth and championship rings don’t seem to inoculate against burnout.

Former NBA coach Paul Westphal said he believes salaries of a magnitude once reserved for the players -- Tomjanovich was to make $30 million over five years -- have increased the pressure.

“I think the money makes people feel entitled to results. And the fact is and always has been -- this is not profound, but it’s still true -- one team wins and one team loses, every game,” said Westphal, a former coach of the Phoenix Suns and Seattle SuperSonics and now coach at Pepperdine.

“Keeping that in perspective gets a lot tougher when they’re paying you a lot of money,” Westphal added. “There’s incredible external pressure even if it’s not spoken directly by the owners themselves.”

Southern Mississippi Coach Larry Eustachy said his salary was a factor in the alcohol problems that led to his resignation at Iowa State in 2003.

“I lived in morbid fear of losing my $1.1-million job, so I drank at night to forget,” he said recently. “It ended up costing me my job.”

There are other luxuries of modern coaching besides the salaries. Professional teams now fly in chartered comfort. An NBA coach might have five assistant coaches, and not only a video coordinator, but an assistant video coordinator.

He also has an ever-increasing host of critics.

“There are a lot more outlets for complaints -- talk shows, the Internet, traditional newspapers, broadcasters,” Westphal said. “The reality has always been that the perception is that players win and coaches lose. It’s lonely.”

Even so, much of coaching stress seems self-inflicted.

Vermeil and Gibbs used to sleep on their office sofas several nights a week during the season. (During Gibbs’ first turn as coach of the Washington Redskins, his wife used to make tapes of the family’s activities so he could stay in touch with their lives.)

Majerus once spent Christmas analyzing an offense, and he routinely assigned a young staff member to walk alongside the pool when he swam laps to take notes when Majerus came up for breath.

“Nobody makes you do those things,” said Layden, who resigned as coach of the Utah Jazz in 1988, saying at the time, “the pressure eats you alive.”

“I think pressure causes you to have frustrations and you do all sorts of things -- eating, drinking,” said Layden, who like his close friend Majerus struggled with overeating. “I think a lot of times coaches imagine more pressure on them than there really is. The worst thing is you get fired and walk away with $20 million.

“If I had it to do over again, I think I would have gone for psychological help.”

Some of the very qualities that make coaches successful in the first place -- such as incredible drive and a great capacity for work -- can eventually undo them.

“That’s not as paradoxical as it seems,” Rosch said. “As you increase stress, function improves -- up to a point.

“With animals and stress, in the beginning all their defenses are mobilized, but if you keep the stress up, they go downhill and develop diseases.”

Long after they have reached the pinnacle, many coaches continue to push themselves. The victories are no longer as satisfying, and the losses hurt more.

Tomjanovich won two NBA titles in Houston, where he played, coached and was employed by the Rockets for more than three decades.

With the Lakers, he “never shut it off,” and said he could have relapsed into drinking but didn’t.

Westphal believes Tomjanovich, removed from an environment in Houston where he was beloved and had a long history, lacked “geographical credibility” in Los Angeles, and didn’t have the same support system.

“I think deep down, a lot of coaches know they’re not as important as people think they are, and yet humanly, you want to believe when your team wins, you’re really, really smart,” Westphal said.

“Now you’re not having as much success. Maybe the other guy has better players....You’re trying to prove you’re not a fluke. Maybe the variable isn’t them, but it still hurts.”

Layden has seen the phenomenon.

“They are afraid of failure, so what they do is become workaholics so when they walk away they can justify it,” he said.

“You’ve got to have balance, time for yourself, interests outside the job. Look at the president of the United States. He’s pretty busy. He still finds time to jog and play golf. You’ve got to. Otherwise all you’re doing is trying to justify your own demise.”

Sometimes, the lucky coach is the one who gets a pink slip.

After he was fired by the SuperSonics in 2000, Westphal and his wife would sit on their patio in Manhattan Beach and see planes departing from Los Angeles International Airport.

“There goes another one -- and I’m not on it,” he would say.

Tomjanovich and Majerus made the choice themselves.

“I think in both the case of Rudy and Rick, it’s health reasons,” Layden said. “I don’t think it’s ever worth dying for.”

Times staff writer Jerry Crowe contributed to this report.