hour weeks: The NFL’s guide to parenting is in a league of its own – The Irish Times

During a hearing about the eligibility of a college football player named Trinidad Chambliss at Mississippi State Court in Pittsboro last week, Joe Judge, a former head coach of the New York Giants, was called to testify.

At one point in his questioning, talk turned to Chambliss’s struggle with sleep apnoea. Asked about the importance of athletes getting enough rest between games, Judge outlined the approach those working in gridiron took when dealing with one aspect of this issue. In doing so, he revealed much about their warped value system.

“It’s not going to be a popular opinion, but this is the truth,” Judge said. “We’d have to educate significant others who may have been pregnant during the season or were going to have a baby during the season. And you’d have to educate them on, you have this baby in the middle of the season, that father has to play good football. It’s a day-by-day production business. He has to be ready to perform and go out there and play. And when I say that, you need to let him sleep. He needs to be in the other room, detached. You have to explain to the mother, ‘Hey listen, he ain’t waking up for midnight feedings.’”

Judge won 10 and lost 23 during two seasons at the helm of the New York Giants earlier this decade. Having made his reputation as a successful special teams co-ordinator with the New England Patriots, he’s currently the quarterbacks coach at Ole Miss. Nothing the 44-year-old has uttered before in his career ever garnered as much attention as that comment.

His performance on the stand caused such a stir that Judge later claimed he was referring only to the situation in the NFL. A place where, apparently, he thinks it’s perfectly fine to dictate that fathers go Awol from parenting their newborn babies if there’s a match coming up.

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“These are discussions I was a part of at the professional level from veteran players based on their own experience managing similar situations,” said Judge. “These are not discussions we’ve had at the collegiate level. As a husband and father of four children, I understand those challenges first-hand and would never diminish the commitment to family. We share that same dedication to family with our players and always support them through any challenges they face in their personal lives.”

A few weeks before Judge’s revelations about the sport’s rather primordial approach to paternal responsibilities, Mike MacDonald, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, did an interview about his famously rigorous work schedule. By way of illustrating that he had made an extra effort to improve his work-life balance during this campaign, he explained how and when he fits in quality time with his one-year-old son as he prepares for games every Sunday.

“I don’t get to see Jack throughout the week as much,” said MacDonald. “So, Thursdays, which is today, I try to get home pretty quick to be with him for maybe half an hour, an hour before he goes to bed. And then, I’ve got a set-up in my house where I can work on the game-plan. I’m able to spend some more time at home and be with Jack. And, also, it kind of lets you get away from everything, to see everything from a different perspective. And it keeps you fresh, so it’s been helpful.”

The fallout from that comment was insightful. Half the country was appalled, with a few pointing out that somebody in MacDonald’s inner circle really needs to remind him his son will only be a one-year-old once. Of course, plenty of dunderheads were overly impressed by the grind aspect of his lifestyle, lauding him as somebody locked-in and willing to sacrifice precious interactions with a toddler because he was on a quest for glory. Since he went on to win the Super Bowl last Sunday week, the latter will be an even more commonly held view. Fitting then that he lifted the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named for a coach renowned for regularly forgetting his daughter was in the car when he was supposed to drop her to school.

More than a decade ago, when two head coaches, John Fox and Gary Kubiak, had to step away from their positions in quick succession due to stress-related health problems, there was a brief national debate about the dysfunctional workplace culture in the NFL. John Harbaugh, then running Baltimore Ravens, now in charge of the Giants, kept a diary for ESPN to illustrate the heavy load people in the role carried.

Over the course of a week, he detailing sleeping on his office couch a couple of nights (common practice) and getting home before 10pm only once, on Fridays, when he walked in the door at 6pm specifically to play basketball and to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid books with his daughter Alison.

More than two decades have passed since Jon Gruden, then lighting it up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, boasted that he set his alarm for 3.17am each day so that he could be at his desk reviewing game film by 4am. This was a routine for which he received gushing praise, because head coaches have always been expected to work at least 80 and sometimes 100 hours per week. Otherwise, they aren’t doing the job properly. Damn the consequences for spouses and children.

The NFL guide to parenting. In a league of its own.

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