Bret Bielema Is Done With Regular People Shit Like Going To The Pharmacy, "Needs To Get Back Into Coaching Pretty Quick"

Jack Mac1/30/2018 6:45 PM

Bret Bielema was fired coming off the field back in November:

No, really, as he was coming off the field after a loss to Missouri he was fired:

Stone cold. An example of how brutal the coaching business truly is. Bielema and the entire college football world saw this coming, but Arkansas definitely could’ve taken a more professional approach.

Most people who would’ve gone through what Bielema went through at Arkansas the past few years would maybe take a year off. Maybe get into TV for a bit, take a few trips up to beautiful Bristol, Connecticut. You know, take a deep breath before you got back into coaching. Football coaches aren’t most people though:

Sports Illustrated-“I had a morning last week where I had to drop the dogs off to get groomed, pick up a UPS package, make a stop at the pharmacist to pick up a prescription for my daughter and pick the dogs back up,” said Bielema, who became a dad for the first time in July and who was fired in November after five seasons at Arkansas. “I said ‘I need to get back into coaching pretty quick. This is getting to be too much.’”

“This is getting to be too much” is the point where I lost it. I don’t think I’ve ever read a quote that sums up a football coach better. Doing regular people day-to-day activities is like walking through the Sahara desert to them. Their brain works in one way and one way only: football. Most people would look at a head football coach at a D1 level and get blown away by the hours they put in. From 80+ hours a week in season to traveling all over the country in the off-season trying to impress teenagers, the regular person would want nothing to do with it. Yeah, you are paid millions of dollars, but I have yet to mention how much you have to do to get to the top. We are talking 5-10 years of sitting in a dark room, watching film, charting whether or not the 19-year-old outside linebacker, who treats you like scum, engaged the blocker on the 32nd play of the game last week. All while being paid 20k a year in a shitty college town. That’s just for the opportunity to be the DB’s coach of Louisiana Lafayette. Then the process starts all over again.

So, yeah, most people wouldn’t do that, but football coaches aren’t most people. That paragraph is what gets college football coaches off. There is no other option for them. It’s 80-hours recruiting high school kids in Mississippi or death.

There should be a #FootballGuys club that certifies the true #FootballGuys because that term has been thrown around way too much the past few months thanks to Pardon My Take. I don’t know how the certification process will work, but I know it should start with a simple “what would you rather do: spend 80-hours a week watching film or take a vacation with your family?” That should separate the champs from the chumps.

Bielema said he put on too much weight at Arkansas, allowing the pressure of the job to affect his diet and knock him out of a regular workout routine. So as he contemplates the next step, he’s also slimming down. “In the morning, I start off with one grapefruit. I’ve had 14 days of that now,” he said. “I loved grapefruit 14 days ago. I don’t know about that now.”

Will grapefruits be for Bret Bielema what pears were for Rick Ross?