With this paper I wanted to show that football coaches are a discourse community and that they would

be more efficient in achieving their group goals if they utilized new forms of technology specifically the Zeus computer program in making decisions during and before games. I thought that I would be successful in achieving this because I am knowledgeable about the subject. I come from a coaching background and I have coached on high school teams despite my young age. I also have been the head coach of a youth football team in Nevada. I constantly am reading about the game of football and am very current on my knowledge regarding game planning and statistical data. I want to return to the sport some day at the high school level and so I research almost daily. I changed my paper drastically from my peer-reviewed paper. I didnt understand the assignment at first and failed to make a claim. Also I didnt provide enough information in my synthesis section the first time around. The revised paper includes an in depth synthesis regarding concepts I thought applied to my discourse community. Also I made a claim. I think that as far as what could be better, I feel like I couldnt quite fit the paper within the word limit. I tried and felt that my ending was rushed despite going over by a few hundred words. I think that to fully write a polished paper I would need more of a word limit. I ended my paper sort of abruptly to avoid going over more than I already have. I think that if I had no limit I could have explored a more complete argument and tied things together more cleanly. As far as what is working well I think that I have done a large amount of research. I am sure that I sound informed on my topic and I think that the reader will pick up on this as well. I think I make an argument that is logical and makes sense. I do a good job of supporting the argument in my opinion. This project has

taught me to be more organized and to keep in mind who I am writing to. Also I learned a great deal about discourse communities and what goes on inside of them.

Football Coaches: An Ethnographic Study As people we are all involved in some kind of group or area of interest. Have we ever stopped to wonder what makes up these groups what they are called or what they bring to others within different areas of interest? These groups are called discourse communities among scholars. They are more or less groups that share an interest and a common goal. A community I am involved in is a community of football coaches. Inside of this large community there are smaller communities made up of individual teams. The coaches on these teams are held to a standard almost always that includes instant success. If a team is not competing for championships right away employers of coaches often times have little patience leading to a coaching staffs dismissal. This type of pressure to win and to win early pushes those involved in the coaching discourse community to employ many means of gaining an edge over opponents. Many coaches rely on current sorts of multiliteracies to achieve this advantage over competition. The question arises then what type of multiliteracies are used to aid in the success of these coaches and how can new forms of multiliteracy be used to gain an edge over competition that is seen within the discourse community among individual teams? Often times coaches experience communication issues that hinder them from fully experiencing success in finding a solution to this answer. The problem lies in their language issues and stubborn attitudes in sticking to old ways. The answer to the problem and the question lies in advancement of technology. Through the breakdown of statistics and the use of new forms of technologies coaches can combine current forms of

multiliteracy with newer forms that are either not yet being used or are being used by a small percentage of coaches. To understand this concept better it is important to first understand what is already being said about discourse communities. According to John Swales, to identify a group of individuals as a discourse community the group has to meet a set of six criteria. In his article The Concept of Discourse Community Swales says, 1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals 2. Discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members 3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback 4. A discourse community utilizes and hence posses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims 5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis 6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales 471 472). By outlining a set of criteria we can see what constitutes a discourse community and what does not. This helps us identify many key concepts that arise when discussing discourse communities such as how information is passed and why certain problems or situations might arise. Now that John Swales has given a clear concept of what a discourse community is, it is important to look at the actual function of a discourse community and what goes on inside of one. What it takes to be a member and what must happen once one is already a member is an essential part of understanding discourse communities. There are

many important concepts and ideas about what goes on inside of discourse communities, but for the purpose of this paper there are only a handful that are overly important. Those concepts are the ideas of identity, authority, the definition of genre, the definition of multiliteracies, and Discourse with a capital D. James Paul Gee, the Writing About Writing glossary, and Elizabeth Wardle express these ideas. James Paul Gee explains in his article, Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics, that to truly be a part of a Discourse community we as people must, say or write the right thing in the right way while playing the right social role and (appearing) to hold the right values, beliefs, and attitudes. Thus, what is important is not language, and surely not grammar, but saying (writing) doing being valuing believing combinations (Gee 484). This idea that being a part of a discourse community is important. You are either involved in it or you are not. There is no in between. This means that being involved in a discourse community is just that being. It is a part of the individual. Because belonging is a sense of being it cannot be taught. Gee claims that Discourse communities are not mastered by overt instruction, but instead through enculturation into certain behaviors that support the inclusion of new individuals taught by those that have already mastered a certain Discourse (Gee 484). Through apprenticeship or enculturation a veteran member of any community can help someone practice being a certain way with them, however, they cannot teach anyone to be a part of a discourse community (Gee 485). Gee ties in one more important aspect of Discourse communities before making an important statement. Gee connects with Swales indirectly by mentioning the participation of individuals involved in Discourse communities. Gee claims that an

individuals participation through participatory mechanisms is an important aspect of communities from a member perspective. The members of any given community needs to be active participants in order for the community to function as well as to retain membership (Gee 487). All of Gees ideas tie into what he calls Discourse as opposed to discourse. Discourses with a capital D are ways of being in the world (Gee 484). Essentially Gee is saying that being a member of a Discourse community takes total immersion in that community. (For the sake of avoiding confusion discourse communities will now be referred to as Discourse communities for the remainder of this paper.) So far Discourse communities have been defined by Swales and what it takes to be a member and stay a member has also been described by Gee. Elizabeth Wardle makes her contribution to the conversation by breaking down the identity of members as well as who has authority inside of Discourse communities. Wardle states, To find their own unique identities within new organizations, newcomers must choose levels and types of engagement; they must find modes of belonging (Wardle 524). Wardle goes on to state these three modes of belonging as engagement, imagination, and alignment (Wardle 524). These three concepts are important in an individuals fitting into a certain community and establishing themselves as apart of that community. Once identity is established there is generally some sort of authority that is gained inside of a community. Authority like identity is constantly changing and being negotiated (Wardle 525). Authority is something that is given by institutions or members of a Discourse community, and must be maintained through appropriate expressions of authority. All members have a level of authority, but the authority can only be kept if

members learn the appropriate speech conventions or otherwise, lose the authority (Wardle 526). This idea that there is a hierarchy present inside of organizations is an important one to grasp. The use of authority by those with the most authority can directly influence the livelihood as well as the future membership of those with less authority in any given Discourse community. The last concept pertinent to this paper is the definition of genre. It is given to us by the Writing About Writing glossary. The glossary says, genre actually goes well beyond texts; accordingly, some theorists use genre to describe a typified but dynamic social interaction that a group of people use to conduct a given activity (Writing About Writing 724). Genre describes all of the modes of communication that are used to relay information within a Discourse community. This goes beyond text and stretches into multiple forms of literacy giving way to multiliteracies within Discourse Communities. Multiliteracies include the ability to compose and interpret multimodal texts, as well as the ability to make meaning in various texts (Writing About Writing 728). Multiliteracies and genres can include audio, visual, and textual forms of communication. If information is passed through a certain means than it is a genre. To quickly recap Swales identifies what a discourse community is, Gee identifies what it takes to become a member, Wardle shows that there is a hierarchy of power and authority among individuals in a Discourse community, and the definitions of multiliteracies and genre show that communication within a Discourse community is more than just saying or writing things down. All of these sources show that Discourse communities are constantly processing and producing information as well as the importance of their individual parts.

As I explained earlier I am a part of a Discourse community of football coaches. Looking at the definitions above and the information provided by the authors it is evident that this community is the epitome of what these authors are discussing. Football coaches fit Swales six criteria. They want to win, they exchange game tape and information between each other, the use of statistics and game film are examples of numerous forms of genres that help to achieve the shared goal, there is an obvious lexis with one example being play calls, there are professionals and youth football coaches with high school and college levels in between the high and the low, and there is generally a set number of coaches that can be involved on a given team. Gee stated that being involved in a Discourse community involves being. This is apparent in football coaches as well. Generally speaking a coach is involved as an assistant before he can achieve more authority and advance in the field. Through enculturation he learns how to be a head coach from the head coach he assists (Coffin 1). Wardle claims that there are certain means of achieving identity and authority within a group. In the Discourse community of coaches the coaches must be engaged in what is going on, create concepts with their imagination, and their ideas and goals must align with those that the other members posses in order for them to truly have an identity within the group. Also, authority is distributed throughout individual coaching staffs. The head coach generally a more senior member has the most authority where a positions coach generally a newer member has the least authority. Every member of the staff has a say however there is a clear hierarchy of authority present.

Finally coaches go to conferences, watch videotape of opponents, read books, and study statistics to utilize multiple genre types to their advantage. This plays into the mastering of multiple forms of literacy or multiliteracies. All of these concepts show that football coaches are a high functioning Discourse community. Now that it is apparent what a discourse community is, how it functions, and the fact that coaches are in fact a Discourse community, we are brought back to the concept originally stated at the beginning of this paper. Coaches utilize many forms of literacy to gain an edge over opponents. Often times new technologies are neglected and not used whereas older more proven methods of literacy are used to gain an advantage for game day. Certain genres are ignored or used by very few coaches. This is something that needs to change. Through the breakdown of statistics and the use of new forms of technologies coaches can combine current forms of multiliteracy with newer forms that are either not yet being used or are being used by a small percentage of coaches. This ignorance has led to problems regarding language and language use inside of this community. The problem is miscommunication between coaches in reference to play calling and what is the right call to play in certain situations. Often times coaches have to make split second decisions that can impact the outcome of the game in a major way a win results or a loss. With all of the time and effort that is put into the process of learning tendencies and play calling strategies for any given week it would make sense that coaches could agree and understand what calls to make and when to make them especially when it comes down to key moments in games. This is not the case. On any given week there is at least one instance of coaches yelling

at each other or disagreeing over a play call. Emotions run high and often times coaches stick to what they have been taught as assistants conservative play calling. Conservative play calling consists of accumulating as many points as possible while taking as few risks as possible. This is the way the majority of coaches look at football. It can be viewed as the safe way to coach. This type of thinking is often attributed to winning games, but in reality it is not the most effective way to win games through play calling. Tightening up the play calling during big games or key moments is not as effective as relying on the new forms of genre and multiliteracies that are constantly evolving and are available to coaches. New technology is coming out every day. New forms of data analysis are constantly evolving and coming into use through multiple different fields. Why not in football? These new forms of multiliteracy and evolving genre can help aid in solving age-old problems that have plagued football coaches and their communication issues. Instead of relying on conservative play calling it is important to not ignore data that the coaches themselves have compiled as well as allowing these new technologies to help make a difference. For some reason coaches continue to rely on their old ways while completely ignoring these new genre in their attempts to solve their language and communication issues in coming to a decision on play calls in key moments. The biggest example of data analysis technology that is being ignored is the Zeus computer program developed by ViMass Group. Zeus is a computer program developed that models and predicts the outcomes of coaching decisions. The program produces statistical outputs showing the odds of favorable outcomes depending on the personnel and paly calls of a coaching staff. The output by the program even produces what is

called the Game Winning Chance, which evaluates the chances of winning the game based off of specific play calls. If this genre was used with the current forms of information gathering coaches could establish more of an edge on competition than they already can. By using this technology there is a clear advantage yet it is often times ignored thanks to the distrust of old school coaches that currently dominate modern football. An example of the computers statistical advantages can be seen in the analysis of the 2011 game between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants. The game featured one team that would claim first place in the NFC East late in the season leaving the other on the outside looking in. Both teams were in position to make a run for the division championship. The weight that this game carried was palpable and obvious just by seeing the players warm up. This leads to a lot of emotion involved on the players end of things, but even more so on the coachs. Emotionally charged play calling is something that is often seen in big games resulting in conservative tendencies. ESPN broke down the numbers that were compiled by the Zeus computer system and explained the importance of the statistical data here: So, how did the Cowboys' and Giants' coaching staffs perform in their respective decisions? Dallas faced fewer tough decisions (four shown in the table) and performed quite well, missing only one. That 1.5 percent Game Winning Chance error for attempting a long field goal early in the game got a moderate confidence score of 5, meaning extreme factors (such as misevaluation of the teams' customized characteristics) could lead to a reversal of ZEUS' play-call choice.)

Often, coaches get condemned by the media for "questionable" play calls after a loss. Sometimes, these criticisms are completely unfounded and based merely upon "playing results" or second-guessing. Unfortunately for the Giants' coaching staff, that wasn't the case Sunday. New York stumbled on six of the nine critical decisions analyzed here, and five of the six had confidences of 10. Let's take a closer look at these suboptimal decisions. New York went on to fail on five of six decisions that the computer was absolutely 100 percent confident they would make. Just based off of logic and statistical data the computer said there was no way the Giants could fail if they called the correct play call in those five instances. The Giants went on to lose the game as indicated by their Zeus computer Game Winning Chance. The coaches couldnt make the correct call during the game and relied to much on their conservative way of calling plays. This led to a narrow defeat that hurt their chance at a division title. Essentially the computer outperformed the coaching staff. By basing the decisions on mathematical outcomes coaches would achieve a higher chance of attaining their desired outcome. If as a Discourse community coaches take note of constantly evolving technology they could better achieve their goals as well as produce information in a more efficient manner. The problems regarding play calling and language issues inside of this Discourse community could be totally eliminated. By relying on newer versions of data analysis this Discourse community can benefit other communities of a similar sort, and can become more successful among its own members.

Interview Questions: Coach Lane Coffin Coach Coffin is a coach at Marsh Valley High School in Moscow, Idaho. Coach Coffin has won state championships and has also coached with my father. He has been coaching for many years and has a son who is now on his staff.

How does your community of coaches fit the six guidelines presented by John Swales? Well we want to win. We focus a lot on the process of winning and what it takes to be a winner. We share film and go to seminars. I dont really understand what you are saying about the genres. We definitely have a specific language and lexicon. We have new coaches and more experienced coaches. That plays into novices and experts. We also have a threshold cap of 9 coaches. Have you experienced any moments where you could decipher a clear hierarchy of authority among coaches? Absolutely I have. Generally speaking what the head ball coach says goes. He has the power to make all the important decisions, but will rely on his assistants as well. The reason it is his say most of the time is because it is his ass on the line. If I make a bad call as an offensive coordinator he is the one that gets blamed not me. He faces more job security issues than anyone on the staff so that is why he has the most authority. Other coaches have authority as well though. When I was an

offensive coordinator for Cal high in California I had almost complete control of the offense. Our head guy was a defensive mined coach and didnt care how I called the offense mostly because he wasnt super inclined on the offensive side of the ball. How did you experience a rise in authority? At first I was a grad assistant at Idaho State. I learned a lot there under the coaches that were ahead of me. I was fresh out of undergrad and was working for a local paper there to pay the bills. Those guys at ISU taught me a lot and I eventually decided that I wanted to become a teacher and coach at the high school level. That is what I did. I moved to California to teach at a school there and eventually ended up as the OC at Cal high. After a few years at ISU and a few years at Cal High I moved back to Idaho and was offered a head coaching job here. I took it and have been here ever since. Would you agree with what Wardle says about establishing an identity? I dont know a whole lot about this writing class of yours, but I think that it might apply. Sure. I dont know if I understand exactly based off of what you said, but I think that when you explain it to me I could see how it can fit in with football. Have you heard of the Zeus program for computing data and play calls? I have not.

Would you go for it on fourth down in the 2007 Super Bowl if you were on the goal line with the Colts offense? (I had just showed him the ESPN article referenced in my paper).

I think I would have kicked the field goal as well. The coaches at ISU told me to always take the points. That is what I would have done.

Work Cited Gee, James P. Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction. Journal of Education 171.1 (1989): 5-17. Print.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=zeus/061206

Swales, John. The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/men-action/201211/how-oregon-coach-chip-kellycan-spark-moneyball-revolution-nfl

http://vimassgroup.com/ViMass_Group/Welcome.html

Wardle, Elizabeth. Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces. Enculturation 5.2 (2004): n. pag. Web. 18 Feb. 2010.