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Which is sadder: that the NFL said
"no" when rookie 49ers coach Mike Nolan offered
to bring a little class to the sideline by wearing a coat
and tie next season? Or that the league will say "yes"
the moment its official supplier gives the high sign?
Either way, what should have been a neat
little story is already well on its way to becoming a
marketing rollout.
It began when Nolan petitioned the league
for permission to dress the way Dick Nolan did when he
coached on the same sideline in San Francisco from 1968-75.
The son wasn't looking for attention or an endorsement
deal, or even trying to shame his counterparts into cleaning
up their act. Just a way to give props to the father whose
pictures are scattered around his office.
"I think it's respectful,"
Nolan recently told his hometown newspaper, then added,
"What I was trying to say, there's somebody in charge
and this is what they look like."
Not in the NFL, they don't. At least
not yet.
For the upcoming season, the somebodies
in charge will still look as if they got dressed at souvenir
stands, and worse. They'll wear baggy sweat shirts and
hoodies, shiny track suits, polos and mock T-shirts --
all the clothing supplied by Reebok, sanctioned by the
league and available on store shelves by next fall.
You don't have to work at NFL headquarters
to understand that money makes the world go 'round. Three-time
Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick might look, as one
TV commentator put it, "like a homeless man."
But those gray hooded sweat shirts the Patriots coach
models on the sideline sell like mad across New England.
That's why Reebok signed a 10-year deal
with the league in 2002 that one official said paid more
than the $250 million sum reported. It's also why Nolan
can't wear a dress shirt, sport coat or tie -- because
the sportswear giant doesn't currently make any of those
items.
"And if we don't make it,"
Reebok spokesman Eddie White said Tuesday, "he can't
wear it."
The NFL defends the rule because money
from the sponsorship deal that covers both coaches and
players means a higher salary cap. Baseball managers have
long worn uniforms, just like their players. The NBA,
on the other hand, has mandated that coaches wear sport
coats or suits since the 1981-82 season.
The last coach to dress up in coat and
tie was Dan Reeves, and he traded them in for a polo shirt
after moving to Atlanta in 1997, around the time the NFL
started getting serious about licensed apparel.
Reeves, like Dick Nolan, was mentored
by former Cowboys coach Tom Landry, whose photos make
him look like a relic. Landry, like Vince Lombardi, George
Halas and Paul Brown, learned their chops in a different
era, favored snap-brimmed fedoras, porkpie hats and tweed
coats, and had profiles so distinct you could identify
them in silhouette.
Not so with today's NFL coaches.
Officials from the league and Reebok
plan to meet with Nolan in the next few months to design
some dressier duds in time for the 2006 season.
"Maybe not a coat and tie,"
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said, still hedging his bets,
"but it will be something nice."
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