Style question: coach or Coach

[aztarheel]

Forgive me if this has been posted somewhere before but which is correct style:

"blah blah blah," Podunk coach John Smith said.

OR "blah blah blah," Podunk Coach John Smith said.

We can't agree on it in our shop ... thanks ...

[shockey]

definitely lower case.

geez, it ain't the freakin' president..... 

nothing upper-case worthy about it.

[friend of a friend]

ditto

[In Cold Blood]

yeah, go lower case.

[MilanWall]

According to AP Style Book, it's "coach" if preceded by a qualifying term like "Podunk coach John Smith." If there's no qualifying term, you capitalize it like "Coach John Smith said."

[sportschick]

AP style is generally lowercase, but I worked at one where it was uppercased in all instances. Just depends on your paper's style.

[shockey]

eff AP style. it's just wrong. as wrong as any reporter addressing a coach in a presser as "Coach..." he/she ain't your coach. he/she has a name. use it.

[Mighty_Wingman]

How 'bout in quotes? When a player says "I spent all summer working on my pass-rush moves with Coach Williams," is that capitalized?

[sportshack06]

its coach with a 'c'

You could be like the Daily Podunk Times here in this area. The sports EDITOR there will quote a coach like this:

"We just couldnt play worth a shit tonight. I saw more energy out of the two dogs fucking that I saw on my way to school today," said Coach Smith. "We just have to have more energy, or we'll get the hell beat out of us every week," Coach Smith said.

[slappy4428]

TV geekette here uses that term for one person around here so much that it might as well be Nick Saban's first name -- no one else, just Saban...

[ChmDogg]

eff AP style. it's just wrong. as wrong as any reporter addressing a coach in a presser as "Coach..." he/she ain't your coach. he/she has a name. use it.

I find that pretty ridiculous, Shockey.  I think most coaches are actually pretty comfortable being addressed as "Coach".

Do people who don't live in the US not address President Bush as "President Bush"?  I mean, he's not their president.

[Boomer7]

How 'bout in quotes? When a player says "I spent all summer working on my pass-rush moves with Coach Williams," is that capitalized?

The way I interpret AP style is that the above instance is the only one in which you should capitalize "coach" -- when it's clearly used as a title (like Chief, Sgt., King) rather than a job description. That's why you never should capitalize "general manager," because no one has ever said, "Negotiations with General Manager Cashman are going well."

[Rhody31]

its coach with a 'c'

You could be like the Daily Podunk Times here in this area. The sports EDITOR there will quote a coach like this:

"We just couldnt play worth a shit tonight. I saw more energy out of the two dogs fucking that I saw on my way to school today," said Coach Smith. "We just have to have more energy, or we'll get the hell beat out of us every week," Coach Smith said.

Coach Smith said.

Just sayin'

[Johnny Dangerously]

coach Lowercase as a job description, not a formal title. Capitalize only when substituted for a name as a term of address.

That's from the 2007 AP Stylebook.

[TyWebb]

Wow Johnny. Fancy. Not all of our shops can afford up to date style guides. I think mine is from the Carter administration.

[Johnny Dangerously]

My office copy is from 2000, even after asking three times in the last year for a new one, so after lucking into some money last week I bought an online subscription to the 2007 edition.

[Diabeetus]

Johnny speaks the gospel.

[RedCanuck]

It's always been small c here unless it starts a sentence, and usually I'd do something like City coach His Name on first reference anyway and just the last name any time after.

[RedCanuck]

Coach Smith said.

Does anyone else find that extremely redundant? Once you've identified someone as a coach, why reidentify him each time?  You're not like Radio where you only know to call the guy "Coach Jones," and it isn't as if we say "Player Smith said," or "Quarterback Ross said."

[SF_Express]

How 'bout in quotes? When a player says "I spent all summer working on my pass-rush moves with Coach Williams," is that capitalized?

In that context, we go with caps.

We lowercase pretty much all titles otherwise, including the commissioners.

[shotglass]

If you ever have a doubt whether to capitalize a title, err toward going lowercase. There's entirely too much capitalization of titles where they are not deserved or correct.

[shockey]

eff AP style. it's just wrong. as wrong as any reporter addressing a coach in a presser as "Coach..." he/she ain't your coach. he/she has a name. use it.

I find that pretty ridiculous, Shockey.  I think most coaches are actually pretty comfortable being addressed as "Coach".

Do people who don't live in the US not address President Bush as "President Bush"?  I mean, he's not their president.

you're kidding me, right, dogg? comparing the way you address the PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. to a freakin' coach? pick up your foof card at the front desk.

sure coaches love it when a media type calls 'em "coach." it's part of the power trip. it's media members who should cringe whenever it's done. like a bolt of electricity surging through your body.

[Some Guy]

eff AP style. it's just wrong. as wrong as any reporter addressing a coach in a presser as "Coach..." he/she ain't your coach. he/she has a name. use it.

I find that pretty ridiculous, Shockey.  I think most coaches are actually pretty comfortable being addressed as "Coach".

Do people who don't live in the US not address President Bush as "President Bush"?  I mean, he's not their president.

you're kidding me, right, dogg? comparing the way you address the PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. to a freakin' coach? pick up your foof card at the front desk.

sure coaches love it when a media type calls 'em "coach." it's part of the power trip. it's media members who should cringe whenever it's done. like a bolt of electricity surging through your body.

I think it depends. I couldn't imagine addressing John Wooden as John. I couldn't imagine addressing Darrell Royal as Darrell.

Of course, I was raised to address adults I don't know as "Mr." I think that would sound even more ridiculous is a presser than "Coach." "Mr. Paterno .... etc." Also, I grew up in a family of coaches. They call everybody coach. Even the mailman.

That said, I generally stick to first names when talking to the coaches on my beat. I know them and they know me and there's a certain comfort level there. We're on a first-name basis, as it were.

But I gotta admit, if I'm talking to a coach I don't know, especially someone considerably older than me, I feel weird addressing them by their first names.

If I were covering a press conference in the business world involving a CEO I didn't know, I'd probably refer to him as Mr. Smith. To me, Coach is just the athletic equivalent of Mr.

I've got no problem with its usage, even if I tend to use it less and less as I get older.

[Mighty_Wingman]

But I gotta admit, if I'm talking to a coach I don't know, especially someone considerably older than me, I feel weird addressing them by their first names.

...

To me, Coach is just the athletic equivalent of Mr.

This has always been a problem for me. I'm still a youngish guy -- younger than most of the coaches I deal with, anyway -- and especially when I was first getting started, calling older guys I didn't know by their first names always felt awkward. With coaches I had a relationship with, first names were fine. But it's not easy -- and not particularly polite -- for a 20-year-old kid to be calling Joe Paterno "Joe" the first time he sees him.