The scales of justice have tipped again — in the opposite direction — in the case of former West Windsor-Plainsboro High School athlete Jennifer Besler and her coach, Daniel Hussong. ##M:[more]##
After the jury initially returned a verdict that awarded Besler $1.47 million in damages against Hussong and the district for having caused an eating disorder, Judge Paulette Sapp-Peterson overturned the verdict on April 8, but let stay a separate award of $100,”000 to Philip Besler, Jennifer’s father, for being gaveled to silence when he attempted to air his complaints against the coach during a school board meeting in 1997. The Besler attorneys called the judge’s ruling a “travesty of justice” and vowed to appeal.
But while the final, final verdict may not yet be in, and while the courtroom drama may still be reviewed via books and television movies (both sides are rumored to be considering possible media deals), the issues of the case still linger in the community. What are the limits for a coach trying to exhort his high school age athletes? When and how should parents intervene when a child finds herself in a difficult situation in school. And how, in a polite community like West Windsor-Plainsboro, could a grievance about a coach’s behavior turn into a four-month trial with fees in the neighborhood of $1 million for the plaintiff’s side alone. The News visited with the principals on both sides to discuss the issues.
The Beslers Reflect
Characterized by School Board attorney Sharon Moore as “rich and influential” and as wealthy people “used to getting what they want,” the Beslers in reality come from a humble background. “The best phrase is chance taker and hard worker,” says Carol Besler. “Both Phil and I started out with absolutely nothing.”
Philip Besler was raised in Trenton, coming from a poor family. “My mother was a war bride during World War II,” he says. “My father went over to England and met my mother there. They were married in England, and he brought her back here.”
When his steelworker father died, Philip Besler was just 12 years old. His older brother was already married and out of the house, with a child. Besler and his younger brother lived with his mother in Trenton. “My father was old school, women didn’t work,” Besler says. “My mother didn’t even have a drivers license.”
Living off of social security after his father died, Philip Besler worked to bring in money while he also attended Saint Anthony’s High School (now McCorristin High School). As a linebacker on the football team, Philip earned scholarships to attend Wilkes College, near Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he met his future wife, Carol.
From East Brunswick, Carol’s mother worked part-time in a department store and her father worked in a factory. “I still am still surprised that coming from a family in era like that, that my father thought it was so important for his two daughters to go to college,” says Carol. “Even though we could only be a teacher or a nurse, he thought it was important to go to college.”
After graduating from Wilkes in 1976, Philip and Carol were married the following year and bought a house in Hamilton. Carol earned $5,”000 a year as a teacher and Philip made $10,”000 a year working as an accountant for the state auditing nursing homes for the medicaid program. “It was a struggle for us,” says Carol. “We came from nothing and we had nothing. But we had dreams. I dreamed to be involved in education and Phil dreamed to one day own his own business. Whatever we had to do we just did.”
Jennifer was born in 1979 and Carol quit her teaching position to be home with her during the day while Philip worked. In order to bring in some money, she got a job teaching night school. “Phil would come home at night and try to study for the CPA exam and watch Jen at the same time,” says Carol.
The following year, Jonathan, their second child was born. “I realized that I was never going to be able to go back into the classroom with two small babies,” says Carol. “But I had to work and Phil knew that it was important for me to be a teacher.”
So the Beslers bought a piece of property on Edinburg Road in Hamilton, and opened up a nursery school, Little Friends Preschool. “It was ideal,” says Carol. “I could have Jen and Jon with me and I could still be working at my profession and taking care of other people’s children.”
Little Friends became a state-licensed preschool. “My sister, who was a sociology major in college, her husband, and Phil and I all opened it up together,” says Carol. “My mother quit her job at the department store and came to help us, so it was a real family run business.”
From there the school just blossomed and the Beslers received some contracts with the state to provide childcare. It seemed like every year we were opening up another childcare center somewhere,” says Carol. At first the school only went up to fifth grade. But as their children aged through the program, parents would request that the Beslers open up another grade. “As Jennifer kept getting older, we figured she could stay with Carol,” says Philip. “She kept on opening up new classrooms.” What started out as a nursery school became a private elementary school called Hamilton Day School.
“I think what made Little Friends so successful was that I was an educator first, and not a business person,” says Carol. “My goal was to make it more than a preschool where you’re watching children all day. I wanted it to be a real educational program. Because of that, I became very involved.” Carol contributed to a state commission studying model childcare programs and lobbied in Washington, D.C. “It became a mission to make preschool education as important as primary elementary education,” says Carol.
Meanwhile, Philip continued his climb up the state ladder, earning his CPA and becoming chief of Hospital Rate Setting, the highest non-political position possible. “We were given a $4 million grant from the federal government to develop a program and I was in charge of running it,” says Philip. The program turned out to the forerunner of the system by which hospitals charge patients on a per-case basis, rather than a per-diem basis. “We had it in New Jersey first,” he says.
After Philip moved to the private sector and in 1986 started Besler, based in North Brunswick, that provides financial and operational assistance to hospitals.
After having another child, Brittany, the Beslers left Hamilton and moved to the Millbrook section of West Windsor in 1989. “We moved to West Windsor for the school system,” says Carol. “I had done research on schools in the area because my own children were going to be going off to a public school and I wanted to make sure I was doing the best for them. We loved Hamilton. We had a nice house there and our business was there, and it was a great commute for Phil. At that time the West Windsor school system had a great reputation. So we moved here to give Jennifer, Jonathan, and Brittany the best education we could.”
As their children grew up, Philip and Carol continued to be very involved parents. “I think the biggest thing as a parent is that you just have to listen,” says Carol. “You have to be around enough to hear what your kids are saying to their friends. You have to pay attention, listen, digest it all, without offering too much of your own opinion.”
When the red flags started going up, that’s when Phil and Carol would become actively involved. “Our kids know that we are the kind of parents who were going to investigate,” says Carol. “If they came home and told us something and it didn’t sound right, we weren’t going to let it go with that. They knew that I was going to call other parents, I was going to call the school, and be involved to find out what really went on. As a result of this, they aren’t the kind of kids that tell stories because they knew that we were going to get to the bottom of things.”
Remaining behind the scenes as parents was a important part of parenting for the Beslers. “They didn’t know about it because we didn’t want to leave a bad taste in their mouths,” says Carol. “We tried to keep the kids out of it and resolve whatever needed to be done, whether they weren’t doing their home work, or whatever. As adults, we tried to focus on what can we do as partners to get the kids to do what they need to do — with the least amount of conflict.”
Carol says that it took a special effort to keep involved in their children’s lives. “Aside from the fact that we worked a lot and had our own businesses, I made sure that I was available during the day if needed,” says Carol. “We were around all the time. It wasn’t that our children came home from school and nobody was here.”
This was how Carol and Philip became involved in Jennifer’s evolving troubles with her basketball coach, Daniel Hussong. “Jen didn’t tell us a whole lot with the coaching situation,” says Carol. “Early on she would say things like, ‘Mr. Hussong said what the hell are you doing?’ Now I, as an educator and a parent, would look at her and ask her if teachers really allowed to curse? I’d say what happened before he said what he said because you find that there is usually another story before you got to that story. We would always question her when she said that he cursed or made them run extra sprints.”
As the Beslers made inquiries into Hussong’s behavior, they began to question his tactics. It was in game situations that the Beslers say Hussong’s abusive coaching tactics took full flight. “Phil and I jumped in because we could see that line has now been crossed,” she says. “He was not a caring person who wants to win some games, but became a crazy person who might end up really hurting a kid somewhere down the line.”
As the Beslers began to make complaints to school administrators, they say that they received little positive response from the district. “The school could have prevented the entire suit all if they had just listened to parental complaints,” says Carol Besler. “If they just said they were going to look into it, and meant what they said.”
Looking results, the Beslers spoke with school administrators, including then-principal Michael Carr and superintendent Ray Bandlow, and the school board. This culminated in the infamous gaveling down of Philip Besler by school board president Lester Bynum as he tried to speak at a meeting in January, 1997. Although the Beslers’ $1.5 million suit against Hussong and the district was overturned by Judge Sapp-Peterson, the $100,”000 award to Philip Besler for having his right to free speech violated was upheld.
“I think the reason why I got gaveled was that there were a lot of people there at that school board meeting in 1997,” says Philip Besler. “They would let me talk when there weren’t many people in the room. But on that particular day there were about a hundred people there because there was a discussion about strategic planning.”
The irony is that Philip was there simply to get the minutes from the last meeting. “I had gone to school board meetings in April, May, and June of 1996. In June I made my presentation and the principal (Michael Carr) stood up in the audience and said, ‘look we have heard parents’ concerns and we are going to look at coaches’ behavior.’ I thought, ‘finally somebody is listening.’ They didn’t listen before and they had kind of turned us away, but I thought that I made enough noise and finally the principal was going to do something.”
But when a committee was formed in October of 1996 to look at several coaches, including Hussong, the Beslers were shocked at who was named to serve on it. “They put his wife (Lori Hussong) there, they put another coach who was having the same problems as Hussong and was up for review because he was cursing at the kids, they put his assistant coach Brian Welch, and they put a parent, Mastny, who had already told me that he was 100 percent behind Hussong,” says Philip.
“So I then went to the board in November and told them they had a biased committee,” says Philip. He returned in January for the minutes.
When the strategic plan discussion alluded to the fact that profanity and vulgarity were forbidden in the school, Besler attempted to make his point again about the coaching. “I was summarizing what I was going to say and all of a sudden I got gaveled,” says Philip. “That’s when we decided to sue. We had spoken to the principal, the superintendent, and nothing was happening. Now we weren’t even allowed to speak to the board in a public forum. There was nothing else we could do.”
Initially, all the Beslers say they were requesting from the district was for Hussong to take a year off from coaching and get counseling and to apologize to Jennifer. “We had no idea about the (severity) of the eating disorder,” says Carol. “We knew Jennifer had lost the 10 pounds in the two weeks, we knew she wasn’t eating with the family, was very irritable, things like that. But what does the average person know about an eating disorder? It’s the same thing if you are diagnosed with any disease. Then you start doing an investigation and you learn about it. It was only later on, when she was attending the University of Richmond and the coach called and told us there was something wrong.”
Many of Hussong’s former students and players supported him at the trial, and Jennifer says that she is not surprised. “He was a nice guy in calm situations, like gym class or during lunch time. But there was something about the competitiveness of the game. Now I keep thinking, this is just high school basketball and there is more to life than that. But at that point in my life it was a huge deal. He made it into this crazy high energy situation. That can be good in a way, because it makes you try. But the way he got there, he was just out of control.”
Philip Besler believes that part of Hussong’s fault as a coach lies in an inability to accept his own contribution to a losing performance by the team. “It is a team sport, so a coach he was looking to blame people for a loss. If you look at the last game of the season that he lost, he blamed the parents, which included us because we had complained. Then he blamed the referees, calling them bums. But when he was looking for a reason that he lost, he never looked inward.”
But Jennifer adds that Hussong often blamed his team as well. “He singled us out,” she says. “It was just the yelling at us. But forgetting about the words even, just his demeanor, his face, the way he’d get in your face and scream at you, call you a loser. Those words to a young athlete, outside of the profanity, are really damaging. You really feel that the coach feels that you are a loser. He blamed us, individually, at certain times. ‘You don’t want it bad enough. You don’t care.’ Those kinds of things really hurt to hear. It’s not, you should be playing better. It’s you don’t care. Those are two very different things to tell a kid. But you can’t say, well I am trying coach. We’re sitting in a locker room with him sitting there yelling at us, and we’re just waiting for it to end.”
“Because he was soft spoken and he had his kids at practice and his wife was there, it was confusing,” continues Jennifer. “I just started attacking myself because I thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought I was really a loser. How many times can you call a kid a loser and have them just snap out of it? It plays on your psyche.”
In 1997 Hussong was issued a memorandum of understanding by the school that said that he needed to conform to a strict standard of behavior. As a condition of employment as coach, throughout the season Hussong was to be supervised by an administrator — usually Carr, but sometimes then-athletic director Rex Walker — at all games.
“He was only issued the memorandum of understanding because the NJSIAA got involved after he called the referees bums to the Trenton Times,” says Carol. “I think the school knew once the NJSIAA got involved and he was going to be brought up before them, they had to show them they were doing something. Because whatever sanctions the NJSIAA would put against the school, not just the individual coach. But he could call the kids ‘faggots’ and use the F-word repeatedly, but it was only after the NJSIAA got involved that they decided to do something.”
Adds Carol Besler: “Other coaches would coach. They didn’t get overly involved in the kids’ lives. They got involved if the kids came late to practice or got detention, they’d have a talk with them. But practice started at 3:45 and it ended at 5:30 and everybody went home.”
“But with Dan, sometimes they would go into practice at 6 in the morning before school started, come home take a shower, go to school, and practice again at the end of the day. As a parent you would sit out in that parking lot waiting. A practice that was supposed to get out at 5:30, sometimes it would be 6, sometimes 6:30, and you didn’t dare go into that gym to find out where your kid was and what was going on, because when he said practice was over practice was over.”
Jennifer says that she feels that Hussong still doesn’t seem to know that he ever did anything inappropriate as a coach. “To hear him say that this is without merit, it’s obvious that he doesn’t realize the emotion that I have felt,” she say. “But he can’t look at me and feel what he did and he can’t feel any kind of remorse. I see that he has not changed anything about his coaching. You have to realize you are doing something wrong in order to change. Maybe those kids who support him aren’t realizing it.”
Rather than sending their two younger children to West Windsor-Plainsboro schools, the Beslers have opted for the Peddie School. Both have become all-state athletes. Jonathan, who was a placekicker in high school, graduated from Tulane University and is now an accountant in Boston. Brittany, now a senior at Peddie, is a star goalie on both the soccer and lacrosse teams and is being heavily recruited by colleges across the country.
Now a part-time coach at Peddie as well as an instructor for a variety of sports camps for both girls and boys, Jennifer says that she takes a different approach to her interactions with young athletes than Hussong. “I decided to basically do the opposite of everything that was done to me,” she says. “I push them, but they have a good time. I try to be really open with them. It’s a dialogue. I tell them at the beginning of the season if I ever tell them to do something and they don’t understand why, ask me. I try to be really positive. And I never use profanity. I’m really careful with the words that I say. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word ‘loser’. I try to be really responsive to their reactions and keep a dialogue open with the parents. They have a good time.”
Does Jennifer feel that Hussong meant to do his athletes harm by his behavior? “Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I can’t imagine anyone maliciously going after a kid,” she say. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”
In the Gym with Dan Hussong
Cast as the demon in an eight-year drama culminating in a four month trial has taken its toll on High School South physical education teacher (and former girls basketball coach) Daniel Hussong. “Although you couldn’t tell from listening to the testimony in the trial, I’m a pretty easy going person,” he says. “But this has been an underlying stresser in my life ever since May 22, 1996,” when the Beslers filed the motion that reserved their right to eventually sue.
But Hussong says the stress of an eight-year wait was nothing compared to the actual trial. “From early December when the trial began until the verdict came out was the worst time because it was so public and so frustrating to have so many things alleged about me as a person,” he says. “I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. The overturning of that verdict feels so good because justice is just now being served. But I’m scarred and my career is damaged. It’s unfortunate that millions of people now have an opinion on me based on what they read or saw in news telecasts. That saddens me. But I go on and try to smile and enjoy my wife, my kids, my community and my job.”
Dan Hussong was born in the small upstate New York town of Hornell, where his father was an accountant and later switched into teaching. The family moved to Brockport when Hussong was in the third grade. Both his parents still live there. His father taught high school business while his mother was a kindergarten teacher. He has four siblings: two sisters and two brothers.
He graduated from Brockport High School in 1974 as a star player on the basketball team. “As a boy I played football, basketball, and baseball,” he says. “I was probably a better baseball player than a basketball player but basketball is exciting and that was what I had an opportunity to play in college. I’m glad I did. I had a great experience.”
After initially enrolling at Niagara University (where his father had played college basketball), Hussong transferred to Brockport State University. “I was going to try out as a walk-on for the basketball team at Niagara, which is a Division I school. But I broke my arm on the first day I was there playing football with a bunch of guys. When the basketball season came around I was really out of shape and there was no way I could try out for the team. I became disenchanted and I had an opportunity to play at Brockport, which was a nationally ranked Division III program. I was lucky, I stepped right in and had three fun years there.”
Hussong graduated with his teaching degree in physical education in 1977. “I was down here in West Windsor-Plainsboro that fall with my first teaching job right here at this school,” he says, referring to what is now High School South. “I thought I would come here for a year and relocate back to upstate New York. But I love Jersey. It’s seasonal, you get the four seasons, but a much nicer summer. You don’t have that upstate cloudy weather all the time. You have the cities. You have the seashore. You have mountains if you want. I’m planted here. I’ve raised my family down here.”
In that first year in West Windsor-Plainsboro Hussong coached football, basketball, and baseball. “It’s the phys-ed American dream. I loved it from the first day and continue to love it.” He continued to coach football for the next five years and boys freshmen and junior varsity basketball until he took over as head coach of the girls varsity program in 1979-’80. He coached that for six years, but resigned when his then-wife, whom he had married right after college graduation, and he were having their first child, Devin (now 18). He sat out the four years while they had another child, Ryan (16) — they divorced in 1989.
Hussong started coaching again in 1989-’90 and continued through the 1998-’99 season. He was remarried in 1992 to Lori, another coach, and they have three children together, Mike (10), a daughter named Colby (8), and Tommy (6). “Devin and Ryan lived with Lori and me for awhile,” says Hussong. “But they are back living with their mom up in Phillipsburg. But we still get together every other weekend. Our family is very close. It’s like we never miss a beat when we get together.”
After earning a 247-120 record as the Pirates’ head coach, Hussong’s temperamental style attracted the attention of the NJSIAA — the state athletic association — and was reprimanded for criticizing the referees in the media. Hussong resigned as a WW-P coach in 1999, but has continued to teach physical education. And he has served as Lori’s assistant field hockey coach at Rider University ever since. “Coaching college is very different from coaching at the high school level,” says Hussong. “At the Division I level in college, where there is scholarship money involved every kid was one of the stars of their high school team. So now it is a matter of blending talent, ego, all those factors together into a team mold. Lori is an expert at it and I am right on the same page. That is probably why we are having good success at Rider.”
Emphasizing the team concept, however, is something that Hussong has brought to every level of coaching. “We’re able to take talented kids and have them play in a team role. If one person scores a lot of goals that is good. But we praise the assists much more than the goals. That is typical of our program. That is good. It wears well on the kids.”
Since the Hussongs took over four seasons ago the Rider women’s field hockey team has won four championships. “We’re going into our fifth season with the best recruiting class that we have had in the four years,” he says. “We’ve returned nine of 11 starters off of last year’s team that went 14-5, so we’re in pretty good shape.”
He also is proud of his team’s scholastic achievements. “I love the girls that we have recruited,” says Hussong. “They are quality people. They’re intelligent, articulate. The team GPA is 3.26. That is almost unheard of at the Division I level in any sport.”
With five children, Hussong also manages to coach youth league sports as well. “I’ve been coaching little league since Devin was six years old,” he says. “So I go up and down the scale. You go from Tee-ball and coach-pitch and you move up. But you have another son coming so now you are doing two at once. I’ve done baseball, basketball, soccer — which is not my cup of tea — but I’ve coached a lot of soccer teams. You do it because you’re kids are involved and that is a great experience.”
But there are some pitfalls to coaching one’s own children, according to Hussong. “It’s fun coaching your kids, but you’ve got to guard against doing too much promoting of your own kid, and you also have to guard against going harder on your own kid than you do everybody else,” he says. “You see all kinds. I’ve tried to keep a good balance.”
Even during the trial, Hussong still managed to continue coaching. “I had a unique experience last winter because I was in this most public trial and I coached my son Mikey’s team in the Trenton PAL league, (Police Athletic League). The Trenton PAL league is refereed by all the high school referees, that’s where they work on Saturday morning. It took a little bravery on my part to expose myself to that, but I had a great team of guys, and we were competitive. Some of those referees I hadn’t seen since 1999 and I must say that one of the most rewarding parts of that experience was that I got such support from those referees.”
During the four month trial, Hussong also coached his daughter Colby’s youth basketball team. “Coaching during the course of the trial took a little guts,” says Hussong. “I was out there for public viewing, and I’m sure I was watched closely. But at the same time I was armed with the truth throughout this trial.”
As the trial date finally approached last fall, Hussong decided to tell his parents just what was about to happen. “At the end of November I finally told them. I said it will probably be a little public. I don’t think you’ll hear about it on your news, but I’m just giving you the heads-up.”
Throughout the trial, the Beslers’ attorneys Dan Fleming and Linda Wong repeatedly brought up the fact that Hussong used profanity. But Hussong says that charge is overblown. “If you walk the halls of a high school you will hear all kinds of profanity,” he says. “But that was the tangible thing in the trial, the one thing that they could say he did this wrong. I admitted to it, but I never used it on anybody individually. But in a spontaneous combustion, I’d use a profane word, either in a half-time talk addressing the team or in reaction to a disappointing play, under my breath or to myself. I put my hand on the Bible and I told the truth. I am living free with myself and that is why I was so relaxed even after the first verdict. I felt that the truth was going to come out.”
Allegations that he was out of control is also untrue, according to Hussong. “I brought in eight witnesses who said it wasn’t that way and three assistant coaches who said that it absolutely wasn’t that way, as well as my principal who observed me for three years. He was with me constantly. They all admitted that on occasion I did use a profane word. I realize that it is wrong and I feel bad for it.”
Reflecting on the impact the initial verdict made on the many coaches across the country who occasionally utter an expletive into the air, Hussong says it must have been frightening. “I know that when the verdict came out there were probably millions of coaches who were thinking, oh my God. Now that it has been overturned I look back on that and think of all those people.”
While Hussong says that he is pleased with the judge’s decision to overturn the verdict, he is still uncertain as to the reasons for the lawsuit to begin with. “That puzzles me now as much as ever,” he says. “I was close with Jennifer. She probably would have named me her favorite coach up to that point mid-way in her senior year. I had a great relationship with her.”
Hussong’s children also counted the Beslers among their friends. “My son would go over to the Beslers’ house for sleep-overs and their younger daughter, Brittany, would come over to our house. I used to be the dad making scrambled eggs in the morning for the kids.”
But Hussong sees some events that happened during Jennifer’s senior season as contributing factors. “The fact that she wasn’t a starter came into play and she expressed that to me and the coaching staff,” he says. “She was told if you beat somebody out you will have that starting position, but until then be happy with the role you are playing. She was an important player.” In fact, Besler did regain her starting position the last three games of the season.
While the Pirates did well in the final few games of the 1995-’96 season, it wasn’t quite enough. “We almost won the Group IV title that year,” he says. “We were in the game against a team with two future Division I college stars. We fought hard, but they were better.”
The nature of parental involvement in their children’s athletic endeavors has altered coaching over the years. “Parents get out now and see every game and they’re vocal and involved. My parents hardly went to my games when I was young. But nowadays you see almost every parent at almost every game.”
Parents can sometimes pressure a coach to play their children, but Hussong says that he has managed to effectively deal with these occasions. “In West Windsor I would always encourage our parents to cheer for everybody else as well as their kids. Most years we had great success with that. If we all stay on the same page and root for the team in the end, we are all going to be happy with that. Because really, you walk away from high school with your memories. If you have a successful team and you have friendships, that should be the goal. If you win a scholarship or set a scoring record or if we win a county championship that’s great. But that never really was my primary objective.”
“As a coach my main target was to have a best effort out of every kid every day,” says Hussong. “That was my coaching philosophy and it still is. If you can get the team to try their hardest all the time then you can accept defeat without a whimper. You can accept victory too.”
Drawing on experiences from his past has also informed his coaching techniques. “Educators and coaches always have to be learning,” says Hussong. “You should never feel that you have the one thing that will work all the time. I draw on things that I experienced as a player all the time. For instance, I was not always the star on my team. I was lucky enough so that sometimes I was. But there were times when I was not the key figure, and some teams where I was actually a bench player. So I think that made me intuitive as a coach as to the feelings of the top two players and the feelings of the bottom two players.”
“One thing that I have really enjoyed in my coaching career is that I have been able to create an atmosphere in which everybody felt important, that they all had a role,” he continues. “That is probably the one thing that has helped me have success as a coach.”
Whether or not the trial will have any impact on Hussong’s coaching style has been an issue throughout the trial. “Good coaches are ever changing,” he says. “If you try to use ‘70s coaching techniques in the ‘80s or the ‘90s you will be out of step. But coaching evolves. There are holdovers and pioneers and it’s that meshing that makes you go on. I’ve coached in four decades, yet I remain current and keep with the trends.”
But, Hussong adds, “your principles are the solid base you stand on and you have to maintain them,” he says. “Sure, I’m a different coach in 2004 than I was in 1984, and that is appropri
