Apr 16, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Utah Jazz head coach
Tyrone Corbinin double overtime against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center. The Utah Jazz win 136-130 in double overtime. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
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You’d think the man beat your step-child or ran an illustrious franchise with a history of championships into the ground the way some folks are still (over)reacting to Tyrone Corbin’s tenure as head coach of the Utah Jazz.
First week of Jazz preseason has become open season on ex-coach Tyrone Corbin in media. Ridiculous. John Wooden couldn't have won here.
— Steve Luhm (@sluhm) October 1, 2014
If some young Jazz players turned on Corbin, that tells us as much about them as it does about the ex-coach, right?
— Steve Luhm (@sluhm) October 1, 2014
I understand Corbin couldn't return, given the circumstances. I also understand blasting him after the fact is silly.
— Steve Luhm (@sluhm) October 1, 2014
Maybe it’s time to take a step back and get some perspective. Oh, and let go of the past while you’re at it.
It’s not like the man ruined the Utah Jazz franchise, your life, or any of it’s players irreparably. He didn’t pull a New York Knicks Isiah Thomas on the franchise. Or even anything close to it. He left all he had out there and was welcomed to another NBA team as it’s head assistant, promptly winning the Las Vegas Summer League title over the likes of the Jazz, ironically, for the Sacramento Kings.
Still, many fans cite Tyrone Corbin as being fired with copious exclamations as if it were some glorious victory of a loathsome campaign, when in fact he was merely not retained after his contract expired.
Some people invested so much time and emotional energy into malice, decrying a man that never had a prayer to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Jerry Sloan — not to even mention the personnel — that they don’t even know what to do with themselves even now.
Few coaches have had to endure the ludicrous animosity some “Jazz fans” generated for Tyrone Corbin, many campaigning daily for him to be be fired with signatures and handles on blogs, parody social media accounts and disturbing obsessive behavior such as defaming Corbin’s Wikipedia page with vandalism, then bragging about it on Twitter like those kids everyone hated, but no one dared say anything to in junior high school.
Visit certain comment boards still, or read Twitter and replies, and some people are still so emotionally invested in irrational hatred that they haven’t been able to let go of the Tyrone Corbin era in Utah. It’s all they lived for for so long, that they are even now unable to embrace an entirely different future bereft of their illogical object of disgust and personal shame.
You’ll never see a professional team where every single player praises their head coach all the time. It’s impossible for everyone to be the teacher’s pet. Naturally, you’ll be able to find dissenters on any squad.
Maybe if Ty Corbin had had some sort of major character flaw in his past — not naming names, but c’mon now, everybody screws up — there would be some ground to stand on. But there isn’t. He’s a fine man and human being. To attack him for doing the best he was able under suspect circumstances, rosters and upheaval handed him by his superiors, and then ridiculing and blaming him for those flaws not of his making is juvenile at best, spiteful and immature at the least.
You couldn’t do better under the circumstances. Yet you’d stand there on an oft-anonymous soapbox and spout “justified” criticism for it?
People tend to hear what they want to hear, sometimes becoming so ingrained in an opinion and way of thinking that they become unable to listen objectively, without bias. Take for instance one reply to Steve Luhm’s mini-rant which stated:
"“Greg Miller himself twice in 6 days on 1280, while praising Ty personally, said he did not hold players ‘accountable'”."
On the contrary, what Miller actually said was:
"“As I said last week, I love Tyrone Corbin. He’s a great man, a great gentleman. Ty has taken the accountability to a whole new level.” –Greg Miller, CEO of the Jazz on 97.5/1280 The Zone"
To be emotionally invested in your team is a wondrous and satisfying thing. A necessary thing to that team’s very survival incarnate.
But to be obsessed with things not under your control while engulfed in enraged hostility can only breed misery and destructiveness to you and those around you. Including your beloved team.
So. Moving on…
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