Advisory: Why basketball coaches all say the same thing, why it works
Following every men’s college basketball tournament game this month, reporters will likely look to the coaches to explain the outcome. To help explain the coaches’ comments, the media can turn to a Wake Forest University professor who has researched coaches’ post-game comments for nearly two decades.
“After a while, if you listen to enough coaches, you begin to think you’ve heard it all before,” says John Llewellyn, an associate professor of communication at Wake Forest. “And the odds are, you have.”
Llewellyn analyzed the professional vocabulary of NCAA Division I men’s college basketball coaches for “Coachtalk,” a chapter in “Case Studies in Sport Communication,” scheduled for release this year by Praeger Press. An expert on rhetoric, Llewellyn says there is a pattern in what winning and losing coaches say after each game that reveals an underlying respect for each other and the world of athletics.
“The scoreboard is only the beginning,” he says. “Coachtalk is the language coaches use to generate hope and explain outcomes. It sustains the culture of sports.”
Llewellyn is experienced with broadcast and print media. He is available for interviews about his research and to analyze coaches’ comments during March Madness. For more information, contact Sarah Mansell at manselss@wfu.edu or 336-758-4393. Contact Llewellyn at llewelly@wfu.edu or 336-758-4511.
