Style question: coach or Coach

Coach Smith said.

Just sayin'

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

Johnny speaks the gospel.

 

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.

 

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."

 

In that context, we go with caps.

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.