Joe Paterno's death this past Sunday got me thinking about coaches and coaching (which is probably better than a lot of the other things you could think about JoePa, Penn State, and football culture over the last couple of months).

In my time as a tennis player, I had coaches -- some of whom were extraordinarily good and others were painfully average. I've done a brief stint as a coach -- I'm sure falling more on the painfully average side of that continuum.

But in thinking of coaches in the major sports, it's clear that some stay too long in one place (Paterno, Bobby Bowden), others move so frequently it's hard to build any kind of trust in them (John Calipari, Larry Brown), and still others seem to have a handle on getting it just right.

So with that last category in mind, here are my top five favorite coaches:

5. Tom Osborne, Nebraska football. I admire Osborne's quiet dignity, his underrated football creativity, and most of all his tenacity in pursuit of a national championship. He went from 1972 until 1993 without a title -- including the 1984 Orange Bowl loss to Miami where his choice to risk a two point conversion rather than settle for a tie no doubt cost his team the #1 ranking -- and then was rewarded for his perseverance with three titles in four years. Nebraska is in many ways still searching for his replacement.



4. Brad Gilbert, tennis. Gilbert is the original super-coach in modern tennis. In the mid 1990s, Andre Agassi hired him because as a player Gilbert won many matches he should have lost while Agassi was losing many matches he should have won. The partnership was magic, and a career Grand Slam the result. Today, Gilbert shines as a tennis analyst/humorist on ESPN.



3. Pete Carril, Princeton basketball. Carril is the architect of the famed and maddening "Princeton offense," a system of passes, screens, and backdoor cuts designed to help Ivy League basketballers compete with better athletes at other Division I schools. It worked, too, as the 1996 Princeton team upset defending national champion UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Little known fact: Carril loves tennis and often played on the Princeton indoor courts, located six floors below the basketball arena. He would also smoke a cigar while he played . . . and leave the cigar butts scattered around the back of the courts. We all knew when Carril had been on our courts. A small price to pay, I guess, for beating UCLA.



2. Tom Landry, Dallas Cowboys football. Growing up in Dallas in the 1970s meant you almost had to like/admire/support Tom Landry. Few things made me feel that all was right in the world more than Tom Landry discussing the next play with Roger Staubach.



1. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke Basketball. Twins separated at birth? Maybe. A reason to like Duke basketball even with a son at Chapel Hill? Certainly.

I have recently posted on my fondness for Paul Simon's music.

So my eyebrows got raised when I saw this in Saturday's Charlotte Observer:

Paul Simon's meandering spiritual journey
By Kim Lawton
Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
By Kim Lawton
Posted: Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012

Paul Simon's new album, "So Beautiful or So What," is winning attention from evangelical Christians and other religious people. 2006 AP FILE PHOTO

Paul Simon says there has always been a spiritual dimension to his music. But the overt religious references in his most recent album, "So Beautiful or So What," surprised even him.
There are songs about God, angels, creation, pilgrimage, prayer and the afterlife.
Simon says the religious themes were not intentional - he does not describe himself as religious. But in an interview with the PBS program "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly," he said the spiritual realm fascinates him.
"I think it's a part of my thoughts on a fairly regular basis," he said. "I think of it more as spiritual feeling. It's something that I recognize in myself and that I enjoy, and I don't quite understand it."
Simon may not understand it, but he's been writing and singing a lot about it, and that has generated attention. One Irish blogger suggested "So Beautiful or So What" could be the best Christian album of 2011. Sojourners' Cathleen Falsani, an evangelical who writes frequently about religion and pop culture, called it "one of the most memorable collections of spiritual musical musings" in recent memory.
"It's a stunningly beautiful ... album, and he's a great surprise to me and frankly a huge blessing," Falsani said.
During a career that has spanned half a century, Simon has received numerous awards, including 12 Grammys. His first Grammy came in 1968 for best contemporary vocal duo, along with his musical partner Art Garfunkel. Their 1970 Grammy-winning song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was influenced by gospel music.
Simon comes from a Jewish background. "I had no interest. None," he said. Now at 70, he said he has many questions about God.
In his song "The Afterlife," he speculates about what happens after death. He imagines waiting in line, like at the Department of Motor Vehicles. As the chorus goes: "You got to fill out a form first and then you wait in the line."
But there's a serious aspect as well, as the song continues:
Face-to-face in the vastness of space
Your words disappear
And you feel like you're swimming in an ocean of love
And the current is strong.
"By the time you get up to speak to God, and you actually get there, there's no question that you could possibly have that could have any relevance," Simon explained.
Inspiration
One of the most unusual songs on the album, "Getting Ready for Christmas Day," includes excerpts of a sermon preached in 1941 by prominent African-American pastor J.M. Gates. Simon heard the sermon on old recordings and said he was drawn to the rhythms of Gates' "call and response" style of preaching.
The song "Love and Hard Times" begins with the line:
"God and his only son paid a courtesy call on Earth one Sunday morning."
Simon said, "To begin with a sentence that is the foundation of Christianity, I said: This is going to be interesting. Now what am I going to say about a subject that I certainly didn't study?"
He's a vessel
The song ends with a love story, which he says is really about his wife, and a repetition of the line, "Thank God I found you."
"When you're looking to be thankful at the highest level, you need a specific, and that specific is God. And that's what that song is about," he said.
Simon said he's gratified - and somewhat mystified - that some people have told him they believe God has spoken to them through his music.
"Is it a profound truth? I don't know," he said. "I feel I'm like a vessel, and it passed through me, and I was the editor, and I'm glad." Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/21/2940734/paul-simons-meandering-spiritual.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

In honor of this year's Australian Open, I'm devoting this week's Top Five list to tennis, the sport that will not let me go.

And to books, the pastime that sometimes consumes me.

Books about tennis have ranged from the avant garde -- The Inner Game Of Tennis by Timothy Gallway comes to mind -- to the uneven -- forgettable autobiographies by Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, and Ilie Nastase to name a few.

But when tennis books are good, they are very good, transcending both genre and subject to move into the realm of literature. Here my five favorite:

5. Arthur Ashe, Portait In Motion by Arthur Ashe. This book is Ashe's diary between Wimbledon of 1973 and Wimbledon of 1974. Though I first read it as an adolescent, the book's intimacy makes it memorable. Ashe's reflections from a 1973 match against Jimmy Connors (before Connors became, well, Connors) as well as his crushing disappointment after a loss in the 1974 Wimbledon to Bjorn Borg are especially vivid. I find it both interesting and rewarding that the year after releasing this book, Ashe beat both Borg and Connors on his way to the World #1 in 1975.



4. You Cannot Be Serious, by John McEnroe. In addition to his otherwordly net skills, John McEnroe is witty, intelligent, and insightful. Notice I did not say nice. That's why the book is such fun.



3. The World Of Tennis, by Richard Shickel. This one's personal. When I was 14, I used to wander over to the Walden Bookstore at the local mall and look through this book with great longing. The vintage photography of Ellsworth Vines, Bill Tilden, and Don Budge made it the ultimate, if unreachable, prize. Why unreachable? It cost, I believe, about $15 -- an unheard of sum for a book at that time. But then at Christmas, my mother handed me a gift, nicely wrapped. I still remember my drop jaw shock when the World Of Tennis was inside. And I still have my copy.



2. Strokes Of Genius, by Jon Wertheim. A shot-by-shot account of the 2008 Wimbledon final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Since in my mind the wrong guy won, I am loathe to label the match "genius." But because of Wertheim's prose, the book sure is.



1. Open, by Andre Agassi. The only autobiography I've ever read that is written in the second person. It makes for riveting reading, and people's widely divergent reactions to Agassi's self-portrait are evidence of its greatness.

A lot of you know that my wife Julie has a good job in the medical field. She travels, she sells, she manages, and she motivates.

And yet when she's home she cooks. Very well. These days, just for the two of us.

So here are my Top Five Dinners. If you are reading this in the morning, you'll just have to wait.

5. Pork Loin. This is a new addition to the list, but the combination of pork and fruit (apples in particular) is superb.



4. Meat Loaf With Mashed Potato. But the meat loaf must be seasoned with Heinz 57. Must.



3. Chicken parmesan. All of us have an inner Italian. This dish speaks to mine.



2. Steak & Baked Potato. Of course. And potato has no "e" at the end.



1. Chicken puff pastry with rice. An unbelievably good dish that combines roasted chicken, fig preserves, and croissant into a true ambrosia.