Jason Salas' WebLog

Having been an athletic trainer/manager in a former life, I would presume that it's the local gym/arena's "floor policy": no hard-sole shoes allowed, to prevent scuff-marks. (I'm kind of surprised you didn't catch this one, being a sports producer and all...)

Most support personnel (coaches, managers, trainers, team doctors) of high school and college basketball and wrestling teams wear either cross-trainers (aka "gym shoes") or what appear to be "dress shoes". Those dress shoes are usually really rubber-sole shoes. For example, almost all wrestling coaches wear a hybrid shoe at wrestling mathces that almost passes for a black dress shoe, but is rubber-soled so that they can walk on the ultra-expensive wrestling mats without tearing them...but still look formal enough to go with their sports jacket and slacks. Basketball referrees wear a similar kind of shoe that appears like a dress shoe, but is really rubber-soled. High school and college basketball coaches usually wear the same shoe as the referrees to conform to the "floor policy". As a trainer or manager, I always wore either a Nike cross-trainer or rubber-sole "ref. shoes".

The reason NBA coaches get away with wearing hard-sole shoes are due to two factors: 1) the floors are temporary floors, and 2) the NBA has money. Since most NBA arena floors are not permanent floors, they're continuously reconditioned since they're put together and taken apart routinely. I.e., damanged pieces can be easily replaced each week. Permanent floors (at all high schools and colleges) are much more difficult to care for...and thus, the "floor policies" exist to make sure they last for 30-50 years. (Local citizenry are loathe to pay for new high-school or cellege gymnasiums every 10-20 years...)

At my own high-school gym, which was built in 1968, we had a 3'x10' section of maple floor that warped upwards over 6" from an under-floor water leak near a back door. That repair in 1972 cost over $10K, which if normalized to today's dollar value would be >$100K. (Today's high-school and college gyms with hard-wood floors are running well into the millions of dollars due to the floor costs.) In order to prevent floor-scuffs from idiots who walked on it with hard-soled shoes, the janitors put a half-dozen coats of varnish and 3 coats of wax on it during the summer, and a coat of wax on it weekly during the school year. Anyone caught scuffing the floor was given 3 demerits. Back then at most college basketball games, security guards wouldn't even let in people under 30 with hard-sole shoes...on the premise that at the end of the game, they'd end up on the floor scuffing it up during the post-game melee...

Once a college coach told me that the way to gauge whether or not the a college's alumni association cared about their basketball team was by the condition of their main basketball floor. If it was covered with scuff marks that were quasi-permanent, then this indicatd the alumni weren't "taking care" of the janitors (by tips and paying them enough) to keep the floors perfect or were being cheap about raising funds to replace the 30-year old floor.

Just remember, scuff-marks are the bain of every high-school and college janitor!

I haven't heard of any sort of fund-raising or "cause", but that's an interesting angle...

hi steve,

i thought about that...that the NCAA might have imposed a new policy to give coaches better grip on the floor. i also thought it might be a particular brand running a promotion, given the fact that Duke and Cincinnatti are Nike schools. but, it looked like another coach elsewhere wore New Balance, of all brands. huh.

It gets mentioned in this article...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=250360150

"...part of a promotion for the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the American Cancer Society."

Back in the 70's and 80's the NCAA had no policies for or against any shoe styles, that I remember (although I seem to remember they had a sports jacket requirement for coaches). But in this era of selling out to corporate interests for sponsorship funding, it wouldn't surprise me any if there's a whole slew of policies about shoes and uniform markings to allow such funding. If these large sports outfitters have somehow coerced coaches into wearing only their products, then I think this source of funding has gone too far! (Making coaches become shills for a sports outfitter is unbecoming of the coaching profession, esp. since coaches are supposed to be instilling "can't be bought" values into their atheletes by example. If a coach is shilling for say Nike, then this teaches the wrong lesson to atheletes, e.g., tells them its alright to throw a game if someone like a Nike rep. tells them to...)

Oops! Didn't see that last post until after posting... Sounds like an interesting promotion. At least it doesn't cause the coaches to compromise their ethics. The story about the coach near-fainting was interesting. I've never seen a basketball coach do that in the hundreds of games I've attended. Usually it's a ball player that's needs some nitrates and oxygen to continue playing...

A-ha...

"[Coach K] jokingly blamed his lack of balance on the running shoes he was wearing instead of his normal loafers, part of a promotion for the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the American Cancer Society".

Good cause.