5. Daryl Sutter- NHL Los Angeles Kings Head Coach
After being out of hockey for a year, Sutter was plucked from a ranch and hired in mid December of 2011 taking over an LA Kings team playing
at .500 and led them to the end of the season with a 25-13-11 mark the rest of
the way, earning the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
From there, Sutter’s Kings went on a streak the NHL had never seen before in its
119 years. They beat the #1, #2 and #3 seeds to get to the Stanley
Cup finals where they topped the New Jersey
Devils in 6 games to win the first Stanley Cup
in L.A. ’s 45
year history. “He pushes the right buttons,”
said team captain Dustin Brown. “One
problem we had as a team before he got here was getting emotionally attached to
games. He brought that emotional level up. You can do all the Xs and Os right,
but if you’re not emotionally attached, it’s real hard to win in this league.” Sutter’s buttons seemed to work. Too bad the
league followed this great story up with a labor lockout.
4. Dan Fisher- Concordia (Irvine)
Women’s Head Volleyball Coach
Fisher took over a program in turmoil and in his first year, after
starting the season 1-1, his Eagles won their next 36 matches in a row before
dropping the finals of the NAIA Championship. How do you follow that up? You
guessed it. Fisher’s Eagles finished up their season 38-0 with an NAIA
championship. Consider the team won the title with the reigning NAIA Player of the
Year on the injury shelf the last two weeks of the championship run. By his own
admission, Concordia was never the most athletic team on the floor but they
worked together and as the coach put it so eloquently, "We just needed to be
better volleyball players,"
3. Ivan Lendl- Tennis Coach of Andy Murray
Murray had been a high level player knocking on the
door for several years, but the hiring of Lendl in 2012 finally put the Brit to
the top. At his home tournament of Wimbledon, Murray
lost a heartbreaking match to Roger Federer but got his revenge a month later
by winning the Olympic gold medal in London,
topping Federer. A few weeks after that, he won the U.S.
Open in New York
becoming the first British player to win a major tournament since 1936. Murray
says Lendl is the coach that tells him what he needs to hear, not what he wants
to hear. The results don’t lie.
2. Marcio
Sicoli- USA
Beach Volleyball Coach,
May-Walsh
It was as unprecedented as it was unexpected. Coming
off achilles and knee injuries, and her partner a pregnancy and shoulder surgery, Misty May-Treanor and
Kerri Walsh-Jennings enlisted the help of old coach Marcio to help the third
seeded team go a perfect 7-0 and win a third straight Olympic gold medal. Part of
their success was their poise in tight matches. “I think the difference will
be the team that's going to be able to be comfortable in those pressure
situations, on 18-18, 19-19.” Sicoli said about their training. “I felt that
our training and our psychological training has been doing really good for
us."
1.
Anson Dorrance- University of North Carolina Women’s Soccer Head Coach
Coach
Dorrance won his 21st NCAA Championship in 29 years a few weeks ago.
Let that soak in. It would be easy to rest on your laurels after a few, but
blackjack? Dorrance continues to cement a coaching legacy that rivals NCAA
names like Knight and Bryant and Summit US
There were many other candidates in the conversation: USA Women's National Team Coach Hugh McCutcheon, Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly, the USA Women's gymnastics coach John Geddert and Texas women's volleyball coach Jerritt Elliot to name but a few. Let us know how we did. Contact us at Region Outreach with your feedback and suggestions. Thanks for reading!
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