Style question - capitalizing coach

You capitalize a job description? What kind of fucked up Editors do you have?

 

Oh, for god's sake, you lower-case it.

Some of these people have enough of a runaway ego trip as it is.

It's a job description, not a royalty title.

 

Upper case only if it starts a sentence. Lower in any other case.

 

And while we're at it, don't use 'head coach' unless there's a really, really good reason to do it.

 

Right, only if the story refers to assistant coaches, making the distinction relevant.

 

From the 2007 AP Stylebook:

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

 

Not sure if it's right or not, but I'll capitalize it if the coach has the same last name as one of his players:

Podunk coach Mike Jones put the football in the hands of his son, Matt, and the back carried the Dunkateers to a 31-20 win Friday night. Matt Jones finished with 205 rushing yards and three touchdowns, and also caught five passes for 50 yards.
"What a game he had," Coach Jones said. "When we get home, his mother and I are going to try to make another one just like him."

It works better in father-son feature stories, when you're constantly referring to the same last name.

 

I don't know about that, Batman. I think I'd attribute the quote to Mike Jones.

I think it's OK to ID the coach as a coach at first, and if a player refers to "coach Jones" in a quote, you can't do anything about it, but I don't like ID'ing a person on second reference as "coach Jones." Just seems too deferential.

But, anyway, I'd guess his wife has to be about 40. Is she smokin', MILF-like hot?

 

A capitalizing coach? Geez, I thought teams were going overboard by hiring quality control coaches.

 

not understanding how to read the ap stylebook, huh? when used the way sf express said, it IS capitalized.

 

I'm not sure you're right about that...Second opinion, anyone?

 

Yeah, in that example I'd use Mike Jones too. Bad example. A better example would be, like I said, in a feature where you're referring to both of them several times and it might get confusing which is the player and which is the coach. It's not something I'd use often, but might mix in once or twice.

And yeah, his wife is smokin'. Proveably hot. Demonstrably hot.