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? The answer to this 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. 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? Coaches constantly analyze film to determine when an opponent will show certain patterns. Coaches look for trends or patterns of play calling in an opponents game plan on a week-to-week basis. These trends determine how a coach will call plays during the game. Based off of the data that has been established in preparation for the game coaches make educated decisions on what they think will work and when they think their team should execute the predetermined game plan. The decisions are more and more often being decided off of statistics and probability percentages, but key technologies are challenging what traditionally has been done inside of the football coaching Discourse community. These technologies are being totally ignored. 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 2007 Super Bowl between the Colts and the Bears. Super Bowl XLI featured a high-powered Colts offense against an opportunistic Bears defense. The Bears had a very average offense this year yet somehow were able to stay in the game against the Colts for much of Super Bowl XLI. ESPN broke down the numbers that were compiled by the Zeus computer system and explained the importance of the statistical data here: The Colts were flagged by ZEUS for six critical call errors. In all cases they chose the conservative kicking route, not taking advantage of their highpowered, efficient offense. The worst decision occurred late in the third quarter. Leading 19-14, the Colts initially faced fourth-and-goal from the Bears 2-yard line. That field goal decision was a moderate error of 1.5 percentage of GWC. But a running-into-the-kicker penalty gave them a chance for fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line -- a situation where even the worst offensive team in the NFL is a favorite to score a TD. The Colts declined the opportunity, satisfied to take the field goal that gave them a 22-

14 lead. That decision was a significant 4.4 percentage of GWC mistake. Indianapolis's total errors for the game were 14.3 percent. To put this in perspective, if they performed at this level for seven games consecutively, on average they would cost themselves a full game over that seven-game stretch. The Colts went on to win the game, however, the numbers do not lie. They could have taken the Bears out of the game entirely if they had relied on the numbers instead of constructs that have existed in football for years. 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. 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 http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/men-action/201211/how-oregon-coach-chip-kellycan-spark-moneyball-revolution-nfl

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=zeus/070206

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

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

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

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