Template talk:Infobox college coach/Archive 1

Overlay

 * Great work, User:Nmajdan - thanks for creating this. My only problem is that the example does not display correctly for me - the example is overlayed on top of itself.  I am using Firefox on a 1024 x 768 disply.  (Off topic - nice picture of Stoops - I'm glad we have one where he is not wearing that God-awful golf visor.) Johntex\talk 17:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I too am using Firefox with the same resolution and I see no problem. What do you mean overlayed on top of itself? (Off topic - I'd like to see a pic of Mack without that God-awful hook'em sign.)--NMajdan &bull;talk 17:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ha! Right back at me.  touché.  I will upload a screenshot of what I am seeing to the commons. Johntex\talk 17:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok. Any issue on the Bob Stoops page? Maybe its just an issue on this page with the   right next to it.--NMajdan &bull;talk  17:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Here is the screenshot: Image:Wikipedia template screenshot.JPG. I think the problem is that my Task Bar is on the left-hand side of the screen, thereby reducing the browser width slightly.  I find this very efficient because the names of the running programs have more room to be written in this format than when they are competing for a single line at the bottom of the screen.  I don't know how common my configuration is. You will see the same effect if you take your browser window off maximum size.  I guess it would be fixable here by placing the example below rather than beside the other text, or we could just not worry about it.  Johntex\talk 18:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I assume this problem would be worse at 800x600, even if the browser is maximized. Johntex\talk 18:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Saw the screenshot. I have that too. Its normal. I have  style="background: transparent;"  in the code of the example. I copied this discussion page layout from Infobox University so that is where that came from. That line of code is not in the actual template (its actually in the  section and not the template) and thus doesn't affect the actual pages.--NMajdan &bull;talk  18:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, actually, it has nothing to do with that line of code. I removed it and get the same thing. Maybe there is an issue with Wikipedia on have a  box next to an infobox. The infobox is fine when surrounded by text, like in most articles.--NMajdan &bull;talk  18:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is no problem at all with it when it is in the article. Johntex\talk 19:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning up optional parameters
I have cleaned this template up by replacing the nasty HiddenStructure with nice ParserFunctions. In the process I have hopefully made it simpler to use, because you won't need to use the Player and Coach parameters to "trigger" the display of the relevant sections: just filling in one of the parameters used in that section will cause it to display. Slightly surprisingly, I found that Coach was being treated as "optional" despite the instructions above, so I have preserved this. There is further simplification which can be done which I can do which would enable those parameters to be removed entirely. If anybody objects to this, please drop me a message. Otherwise I'll get to it as soon as my next shipment of round tuits arrives. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 13:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Improve CHOF field on this template suggestion
Over at Talk:College Football Hall of Fame it was discovered that there isn't the same number of entries on Wikipedia's list of College HOF numbers as the HOF reports. We decided to add a link to each entry into the table to discover the errors and also make the tables more useful, but also add the link to the infoboxes on the article pages. However, this template does not allow linking to the CHOF bio article like the Infobox gridiron football person infobox does. I believe this link would be more useful than the current setup of linking to Wikipedia's CHOF page and the {YEAR} in sports page. Does anyone have a problem with this, or some other suggestions? Thanks. -- MECU ≈ talk 19:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, a good idea. What field are you wanting to replace? The wikilink to College Football Hall of Fame or to the {YEAR} ? Or should we insert a special character such as a cross (†) or double cross (‡) that links to the CHOF bio?--NMajdan &bull;talk 19:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I added a link to the actual College Football HOF site. The link is just a space and the external link arrow. I've altered the Barry Switzer article to reflect the change. I'm going to add the new field to the template instructions above now. Let me know what you think.--NMajdan &bull;talk  14:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think having some type of symbol, so it stands out more would be better. But even still, it's not clear what this link is. Perhaps make the field double sized using a  and have "Official College Hall of Fame Bio" be linked to the bio? -- MECU ≈ talk 15:50, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd like to avoid a 2nd line. I've changed it again. What do you think?--NMajdan &bull;talk 16:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Perfect! You're awesome dude, I don't care what Johntex says about you. (I'm kidding about the Johntex part) -- MECU ≈ talk 17:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

College coach who was well-known as pro player
This template doesn't have any way to indicate a successful pro career for the coach. Jim Harbaugh is probably best-known as a Chicago Bears quarterback, but he is now also the coach of Stanford. Can we expand the template to incorporate some info from the NFL player infobox, such as pro teams, years, HOF info, etc? For now, I am just using two infoboxes for Harbaugh, but it seems like this may apply to others. Thoughts? Sprkee 00:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think adding those additional fields would be a lot of work and coding for only a very small number of cases. I think for now, using two separate infoboxes for a notable college coaching career and a notable NFL playing career is acceptable. I would put the most notable on top, though.--NMajdan &bull;talk 16:27, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it's a good idea to combine them so the template used has the same style instead of the two on there now that look different and awkward, but the problem then becomes we have to cover so many possibilities it becomes difficult to do so. Incorporating all the information from NFLplayer infobox or college player infobox would be an immense project. You'd almost be replacing all three templates with a single one to handle them all. It should be the goal to get them combined eventually, but until someone is inclined to do all that extra work, I think having both on the page is perfectly acceptable. Though I don't think they should be listed one above the other on the page like that, next to each other would be more appropriate using a quick table, so it doesn't seem like one is more valuable than the other. -- MECU ≈ talk 17:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Bowl Record as optional field
Can you add another optional field for the coach's bowl record since that tends to be an important stat in college ball? z4ns4tsu \talk 19:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Done.--<span style="font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font-size:9px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; color:#000000;">talk 19:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. z4ns4tsu \talk 20:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Coaching Positions
OK, I was looking at Nick Saban and saw that the info for coaching positions is not lined up (years are not adjacent to school/team). Reading the template page I see that it should only be head coaching positions in the box and the Saban page does not meet the infobox standards. But since Saban was also an NFL head coach, should his page also have the Template:Infobox NFL coach? Steve Spurrier and Lou Holtz also went College-NFL-College.

It sure seems that limiting the infobox to NFL or college would not show the desired information. Also, limiting it to one coaching position (HC, OC, DC, etc.) would not show enough detail in a coach's career where he took a head coach job, went back to being an assistant and then became a head coach again. (This happens more often in college than the pros when one can be a head coach in I-AA and advance his career by becoming an assistant in I-A.)

Why can't there be just one Template:Football playercoach infobox that covers both playing and coaching at all levels, and allows for people who have moved back and forth?

I saw it suggested that Template:NFL PlayerCoach be merged into Template:NFL Coach and have posted a comment on Template talk:NFL Coach that this be combined in as well. - SCgatorFan 03:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Contract/Salary
Last week, at MECU's suggestion, I added a new field for the coach's contract. Today, I renamed this field Salary since it can be just as applicable to head coaches when discussing their contract and I believe it it more applicable when discussing assistant coaches.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 21:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Coaching Positions
I think we should only have head coaching positions listed under the coach's resume in the box. Comments? What about if there is a break in the years? It might look funny, but is listing the entire resume part of the point of this box? If someone wants the entire details, they can read the article which should list it. Mecu 15:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Since there is no field in the infobox for coaching position, I think that the assumption when it was created was that only head coaching jobs would be listed. However, I think an important part of each coach's philosophy and attitude toward the game comes from what positions they held as assitant coaches (i.e. all the Stoops brothers were defensive coaches/coordinators so have a defence-first mentality).  Maybe head coaching and coordinator positions?  Of course, that would require some adjustment to the infobox and the use of abbreviations (HC = head coach, OC = offensive coordinator, DC = defensive coordinator are the standards, I think). Z4ns4tsu 19:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think only having head coaching positions in the resume box is smart. Otherwise, the box could get pretty long. However, there is a field for coaching positions. Its Title. If you look on some filled in examples of the template, you'll see | title=Head coach. I intended this field to be used if someone was entering in an OC or DC. Unless you were meaning there was no field in the coaching history part for coaching position, in which case, that is true. I based this infobox on the NFL infobox and they only include head coaching positions so I think we should be consistent with that.--<span style="font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font-size:9px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; color:#000000;">talk 20:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What about head coaching positions at high schools? Should they be included in the infobox?  Blue  Ag09 (Talk) 04:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested change
Can we have an "Awards" and/or "honors" section added beneath the playing career section like the one in the coaching career section? There are some coaches who have had notable playing careers as well. Strikehold (talk) 15:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Alignment issues with coaching career in firefox
Can be seen in Cleve Bryant with the years not lining up well with the schools. Anyone care to look since I cant edit this? Corpx (talk) 02:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Using screws up the alignment. I removed the tags so it looks aligned now. Strikehold (talk) 02:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed changes
I'm planning to modify this template. I've added a bit of color, reordered the template and added a few optional attributes (Conference, Tournament Records, Coaching records) - and added more room (2 columns) for awards and championships. I've done the work in a local sandbox (User:Вasil/T2) and hope you guys can could give me some input, suggestions or a tongue lashing, if need be ;-) Вasil  | talk 15:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello, I am the original creator of this template. Overall, I like your changes. However, my personal preference for templates such as this is not to allow the colors to be modifiable. I believe there are only a few cases where the colors of a template should be modifiable and those changes should be governed (such as on Infobox Album). I prefer everything to look as uniform as possible and giving the editor ability to change colors could result in a hard to read infobox or yet another opportunity for vandals.↔<span style="font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font-size:9px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; color:#000000;">talk 15:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * My apologies. I hadn't intended for the colors to be optional. I based this on my earlier work with and was striving for consistency. Can we use the LightSteelBlue color without allowing users to change it?  Вasil  | talk 16:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't mind your current color selection so yes we can use that color without allowing users to change it.↔<span style="font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font-size:9px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; color:#000000;">talk 16:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. Stick with black on LightSteelBlue. A similar debate is going on for Infobox NFL player and my opinion is consistency is key. Everything else looks fine to me. Great work! — PSUMark2006   talk  |  contribs  16:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Guys. Any suggestions as to how to render the colors static? I took a peek at and the color scheming looked a trite beyond my expertise.  Вasil  | talk 16:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You're wanting to make it static so you're wanting to take away an editor's ability to define color. So, just change  to   and   to  .↔<span style="font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font-size:9px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; color:#000000;">talk  16:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The only suggestion I would toss out is to make the title for all of the sections centered, but that's a minor aesthetic thing. I was surprised to see it change, but it's definitely for the better.  Bravo!  --fuzzy510 07:34, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

(outdent)I'm not buying the color argument. I can understand, if you were making a template for poker players, you might want to adopt a particular color and use it everywhere. But college coaches by their very nature are associated with schools, all of whom have distinctive college colors. The selected color is close to Carolina Blue, which is fine for North Carolina, but few others. Why not make it selectable, so college colors can be used? -- SPhilbrick  T  19:39, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Most coaches have spent several years at many different schools. Some are most closely associated with one in particular, but with a lot there is no objective way to say which. In my opinion it is better to just leave it at one default color for all coaches. Strikehold (talk) 20:35, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Move request
Please standardise the name of this template, by moving it to Infobox College coach. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Question - Should it be Infobox College coach or Infobox college coach? Thanks! Plastikspork (talk) 00:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The former capitalisation is more standard; see Category:People infobox templates Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 00:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure, but if you read articles about say college football, the word college is not capitalised. It doesn't matter too much to me, but I didn't see any MOS for infobox titles :) We can start a trend by fixing incorrect capitalisation! Plastikspork (talk) 00:22, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ I decided to be bold and moved it to the uncapitalised version, per Infobox university chancellor. Plastikspork (talk) ―Œ 02:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Optional parameter
Any idea why the optional "relations" field doesn't seem to be working? Sf46 (talk) 13:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not an option in the template. I have removed it from the documentation. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  16:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Alt text parameter
editprotected For WP:ACCESSIBILITY by the visually impaired, please add support for a Alt parameter to specify alt text for the image (see WP:ALT). Please see for the simple edit to add this. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 08:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Add nationality to the template
I've noticed that many biographical infoboxes include a line for nationality. The user can simply put the nation, such as USA, or the user can get more elaborate by including an icon that is a flag of the nation. Has this been discussed as an addition to the college coach's infobox? I for one would endorse such a change. I would like to see this change made immediately. It is an interesting addition, in my opinion.

Code I've found on other infobox templates:

–Jlhcpa (talk) 22:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In theory, adding such a field would not pose any technical problems. If there are no objections over the next several days, feel free to post an "editrequest".  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  22:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

HOF IDs
How do I find the college and pro HOF IDs for Pete Carril?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Code overhaul
I've overhauled this ancient, crufty codebase to better match the modern infobox defaults and make it easier to maintain. Code is in the sandbox and a side-by-side comparison with the current code is in the new test cases page. If there are no objections I'll request sync. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Requesting sync as this doesn't seem controversial. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:04, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:10, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed reworking
I've proposed some reworking of this template. See here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * These changes are now in production. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

External link
The infobox when used shows www.cfbdatawarehouse.com as an external link within the infobox. Two points it should be a reference not an external link, it also imples that the website is the only source for the statistical data and as a personal website may not be a reliable source. The template should allow any source to be used and should not appear as an external links. MilborneOne (talk) 14:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * MilborneOne, I'm not sure I agree with your points, but I have been mulling for some time about the appropriateness of external links in infoboxes, particilarly this one. This template also contains the ability to link to College Football and Basketball Hall of Fame profiles.  Such practice is rather common among sports infoboxes; see Template:Infobox NFL player for an example.  Infobox college coach is not presenting the link to the College Football Data Warehouse as a source for a specific piece of data, but as a general resource.  It is certainly not the only source for such statistical content and is still missing a lot of information that is coverered elsewhere, but it happens to be the most comprehensive collection of college football coaching records that exists on the internet, or maybe anywhere, save for what we are building here on Wikipedia. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:04, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Appreciate as a foreigner I know nothing about college football I just thought it was odd that the template had an external link and recommend that is should be removed. MilborneOne (talk) 19:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit request
I think a parameter for "Alma mater" needs to added to the template, in the "Biographical details" section. Coaches like Art Briles who played at a different school than the one they graduated. Most pages won't need to use the parameter, but for those that do, I believe it's needed. NThomas (talk) 00:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not in favor of adding an alma mater field only to be populated in the rare cases where someone graduated from a different school than the one at which they played. If we do add alma mater field, it ought to be populated for all individuals with degrees and note both undergraduate and graduate degrees and years of conferral. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, any coach that received multiple degrees would increase the likelihood of this parameter's use. NThomas (talk) 05:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Tweak field names
I'd like to edit a few of the field names to remove some of the ambiguity in them, e.g.:


 * Title → CurrentTitle
 * College → CurrentTeam
 * Conference → CurrentConference
 * Years → PlayerYears
 * Team → PlayerTeams
 * Position → PlayerPositions
 * FootballHOF → FootballHOFYear
 * BBallHOF → BBallHOFYear
 * CBBallHOF → CBBallHOFYear

Any objections? Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Can we go with a version that doesn't use CaMeLcAsE? I think lowercase is the format being converged on by the infobox standardisation project. With that in mind, how about


 * Title → current_title
 * College → current_team
 * Conference → current_conference
 * Years → player_years
 * Team → player_teams
 * Position → player_positions
 * FootballHOF → FBHOF_year
 * BBallHOF → BBHOF_year
 * CBBallHOF → NCBBHOF_year
 * But even this this seems a bit ambiguous, given that BB can be either basketball or baseball. There is both a National College Baseball Hall of Fame and National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. But, to make the names longer is cumbersome. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If this form is the emerging standard, then we should indeed go with these versions.  While we are at it, then, we might as well reformat the other fields with compound names as well.  Finally, how about the using "BASKB" to denote basketball and distinguish from baseball in the HOF fields?...


 * Title → current_title
 * College → current_team
 * Conference → current_conference
 * CurrentRecord → current_record
 * Years → player_years
 * Team → player_teams
 * Position → player_positions
 * CoachYears → coach_years
 * CoachTeams → coach_teams
 * AdminYears → admin_years
 * AdminTeams → admin_teams
 * OverallRecord → overall_record
 * BowlRecord → bowl_record
 * TournamentRecord → tournament_record
 * CoachingRecords → coaching_records
 * FootballHOF → CFBHOF_year
 * CollegeHOFID → CFBHOF_id
 * BBallHOF → BASKBHOF_year
 * BBallHOFID --> BASKBHOF_id
 * CBBallHOF → CBASKBHOF_year

Jweiss11 (talk) 02:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Fine with me if there are no objections. It's unfortunate that there is no good short abbreviation for the two different BBHOF, which still allows one to differentiate between the two. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  02:46, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll start tomorrow or in the weekend depending on my time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:23, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Jweiss11 (talk) 03:53, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Done Yobot did 5,838 edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:04, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Alignment issues
I was editing John Lovett (American football) and I noticed the poor alignment of the coach_years vs coach_teams fields. Is there anything that can be done to bring them in line? Thanks, -- Ja Ga  talk 06:06, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The  tags kill the aligment.  Get rid of them and the infobox will look much better. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:17, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks! -- Ja Ga  talk 08:26, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 December 2012
Insert as New:
 * Relations        = Son-in-law of John M. Bowyer

I would like to add the field 'Relations' to the 'Infobox college coach', under the heading 'Biographical Info' in order to link an individual to another family member within Wikipedia. In this case, link Douglas Legate Howard to John M. Bowyer his father-in-law. Relationship can be verified via Ancestry.com and US Naval records. Thank you- J.M. Pugh

JMP1861 (talk) 13:59, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * JMP1861, thanks for posting this item. I'm not in favor of adding this field.  This infobox can get pretty big, and I'd like to keep it as lean and mean as possible with the focus on career achievements, not personal details.  Such family relations as the example given above should surely be noted in the body of articles though.  All the best, Jweiss11 (talk) 14:18, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I concur.&#0032; ⋘HueSatLum ?&thinsp;❢⋙ 00:46, 13 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: It seems a quick consensus is against the change, consider posting a comment on the WikiProject's talk pages to get more input if you'd like it. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:01, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Resting place
What does everyone think about adding the resting_place field to this infobox template? A lot of times people are buried somewhere besides where they died. This difference can cause confusion sometimes about where someone died as well. I'm always under the impression that more info is better when dealing with infoboxes and I think this field would be pertinent.Kmanblue (talk) 15:45, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Nothing? 4 months and nobody has an opinion on adding this field? It's in a lot of other infoboxes. Kmanblue (talk) 00:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

additional sport record fields
with three additions and three reverts of the addition of baseball_record, basketball_record, football_record, and volleyball_record how about if there is some discussion? I checked the actual edit, and it only added these additional parameters, but did not change any of the others. so, it does not modify the appearance of any of the prior transclusions. what exactly is the issue with adding these additional fields? they seem useful for a coach which has coached more than one sport. please discuss. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 16:18, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Frietjes, thanks for opening up a discussion here. The issue here is that if additional fields are going to be added a few things should happen.  First, there should be some discussion to let editors and relevant project know what's up.  Second, we should think about how useful these fields are and how they should be used, if added.  What is the purpose here?  For coaches of only a single sport, does overall_record suffice?  For coaches of multiple sports does the parenthetical structure found in overall_record for, say, Fritz Crisler work?  Is there a problem with it?  How do we treat examples like Hugo Bezdek, who coached multiple sports at multiple levels?   Why are only some sports specified?  What about ice hockey, lacrosse, or others?  Third, there should an update to the documentation if fields are added or changed. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:53, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI, you are now at four reverts. if you are concerned about how they are being used in practice, then check the tracking category.  if the coach only coached a single sport, then yes, overall_record should suffice.  if there is a need for other sports, then sure add those as well.  or, add free labels that can be used to specify sport2 and sport2_record, etc.  Frietjes (talk) 19:12, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI, I'm made three reverts in the last week and the fourth was made on December 17. You've made two in the last few hours.  What's your point?  Isn't the purpose of an infobox to summarize and standardize the key info of an article?  If so, then why have the option of using dedicated fields or free labels?  Shouldn't it be one way or the other?  Now that these new fieldsare back live, are you planning on updating the template documentation accordingly and/or alerting the relevant WikiProjects listed above? Jweiss11 (talk) 19:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * blocks for edit warring happen even when the edits are not all within 24 hours. now that the tracking category is filled, we can see that the only article using these parameters is Jody Conradt.  so, what is your suggestion for separating the two sport records for that infobox?  by the way, this infobox currently fails wp:accessibility since the years are not logically aligned with the teams.  the way to see this is try to cut-and-paste the contents of the coaching career or administrative career sections.  the use of br to delimit the entries means you just get a mess.  this problem is handled by other infoboxes, like infobox football biography by using individual numbered year/team fields.  Frietjes (talk) 16:35, 3 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi, Frietjes. Can we slow down here a bit?  This template is transcluded on over 5,600 biographies of college sports coaches.  That involved a lot of data entry, by several dozen editors, over the last three years.  Any reconfiguration of this template will require those same editors to re-enter that data into any new template.  Trust me, I've seen the results of the so-called "automated" updates after complex template merges and coding changes; the bot edits leave a huge mess in their wake, and invariably require much more manual clean-up after the "automated" changes have been made.  For 5,600 infoboxes, that will literally involve hundreds of hours of manual editing by editors not named Frietjes.


 * The sports of these 5,600+ coaches include college baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, wrestling and others -- over 40 different sports when both men's and women's teams in the same sports are included. While not common in the present day, it was fairly common for college coaches to be the leader of two or three different sports programs prior to the 1960s.  Most commonly, multi-sport coaches included football, men's basketball and baseball, but other combinations were possible.  That is one of the reasons why this template is presently configured for free-form entry of individual sports, tenures, and win-loss records.  You see this as an "accessibility" problem because the positions held and tenures are not directly linked; in the case of this template, it was structured that way intentionally.  If we were to restructure the template to address this issue logically, we would not create individual fields for every imaginable sport; that would be neither logical nor efficient.  To do it properly, we would create fields for "sport1", "tenure1", "overallrecord1", "postseasonrecord1", for up to five different sports.  The last thing we need is to create separate optional fields for 40+ different sports; in fact, that would be grossly inefficient, and, well, not very smart.


 * This infobox is the most-used template by three very active Wikiprojects -- WikiProject College Football, WikiProject College Basketball, and WikiProject College Baseball -- and I would suggest that it would be smart, efficient and courteous to get their input before attempting to make any major changes. Afterall, it would be the editors of those projects that will have to do the manual clean-up and data re-entry that major changes will require.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It's been over ten days since I left the comment above regarding what I believed was the proper way to address the issues raised by Frietjes above. Does anyone have any follow-up comments, or are we simply going to ignore the archaic coding used in this template for the time being?  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:Articles which use infobox templates with no data rows
This template seems to be throwing articles into Category:Articles which use infobox templates with no data rows. It seems to be happening for anyone that has any of the HOF fields entered. Anyone know what might me causing this and could fix it? -DJSasso (talk) 16:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * fixed. they weren't really headers, so I changed them to data fields with the appropriate bolding.  this should clear the problem (e.g., a null edit will remove the article from the category). Frietjes (talk) 16:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool thanks. -DJSasso (talk) 17:21, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Height/Weight
Any way to have the height and weight during their player years? Cake (talk) 22:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Bot run to replace obsolete br-separated career parameters
I've made a request for bot approval to replace all remaining malformed career parameters here. Alakzi (talk) 17:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your work on this, much appreciated. You may wish to also link Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility as a relevant discussion to support the edits your bot would make, as I think consensus is clear there that these edits are necessary given accessibility guidelines. How difficult would it be to adapt this module to also handle the similar Template:Infobox gridiron football person issues? It seems like it's just a matter of changing some of the arguments (and some are even the same). ~ RobTalk 17:33, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It should be trivial, but let's get this out of the way first. Alakzi (talk) 17:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed, I'll be following this closely. The request is here for anyone interested, by the way. ~ RobTalk 17:45, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Please let me know when the two of you have some time to discuss the recent changes to the template. Before we talk, I would be grateful if you would both review several unmodified examples using the deprecated HTML coding vs. several of those that have been recently converted to the new coding. I want to discuss how we might restore most, if not all of the original horizontal text spacing and vertical let between lines of text. The current rendering, as coded, is not an ideal outcome, and I would like to discuss how best to resolve it to everyone's satisfaction. Perhaps this weekend? Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 07:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Why is abotzi removing the "image_size," "current record," and "contract" parameters: ?  Personally, I think the contract field probably should get whacked, but I don't think any of these field deletions were discussed.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:31, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It is simply omitting them when they're blank. Should they always be included? Alakzi (talk) 17:33, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Per Dirtlawyer's comment above, I agree that the newly coded version of the template has some sub-optimal elements of layout. The centering of the sports headings in the playing and coaching tenure sections is awkward, as is the similar heading for "Statistics" in the head coaching record section. Also, I think the template would look better with less space between horizontal lines. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:10, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have made some changes to address these concerns. Alakzi (talk) 11:06, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Bot run completed; Category:Articles using Template:Infobox college coach with deprecated parameters remaining to convert manually. Alakzi (talk) 23:44, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

External links in the infobox
I'd like to propose removing all of the external links from this infobox. This would entail eliminating the CFbDWID, CFBHOF_id, BASKHOF_id fields, and modifying the WBHOF and FIBA_HOF_player fields. I think the purpose of an infobox should be to convey key points about the article's subject without pointing the reader away from Wikipedia. Relevant, key external links can be included at the bottom of the article in the "External links" section. We already have dedicated templates in place for standardizing the external links generated by the CFbDWID, CFBHOF_id, and BASKHOF_id fields:Template:CFBCR, Template:Cfbhof, Template:Basketballhof. Similar templates could be created for external links generated by the WBHOF and FIBA_HOF_player fields. The CFbDWID field, which creates a link to the College Football Data Warehouse, is particularly problematic. Since this infobox template is used for college coaches of all sports, the existence of CFbDWID for football records suggests that we might want to add similar links to definitive statistics websites for other sports. And since many subjects of articles using this infobox template coached multiple sports, this could lead to significant clutter in the infobox. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 14:55, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * This is about as extreme to me as removing the player stat links for the players. What are the current policy exceptions regarding external links in articles and infoboxes in particular?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:33, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd be in favor of eliminating the player stat links from other sports infoboxes and leaving those for the external links section as well. I'm not sure about any official policies regarding such links in infoboxes. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:50, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Since no policy reason has been mentioned, I oppose.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:44, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Tony, do you have anything to say about the commonsense and aesthetic reasoning I offered above? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:16, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If you're looking for policy guidance, consider Manual of Style/Infoboxes. The first section of the body "Purpose of an infobox" echoes my reasoning above: "the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article".  The guideline makes no mention whatsoever of external links. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:22, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

From a basketball perspective, removing the HOF indicators/links would lead to crowding more into the infobox awards section. I don't feel strongly about keeping them, but my guess is that there would be unintended consequences as the current links/flags seem to be the best way to display them. This is all a work-around for the championships and awards sections in this infobox being hard to navigate and downright ugly. I thought some revamp of this navox generally was coming? Rikster2 (talk) 12:45, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Rikster, I have not proposed any removal of HOF indicators, only removal of the external links associated with them. I don't see how this would promote any additional crowding. I agree that the championships and awards sections can be ugly.  I'm not sure who's planning to revamp those, but they certainly haven't mentioned their intentions on this talk page. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:53, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

I like the infobox links for the Pro and College Football HOF. I find them to be helpful, and they take up very little space. See, e.g, Dick Butkus for an article having both. Cbl62 (talk) 03:55, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Cbl62, but with that design you forfeit the wikilinks to the articles about those HOFs. Jweiss11 (talk) 10:52, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's just what I'm used to, but I like the current norm, as reflected in the Butkus article, with a direct link to the player bios from each respective Hall of Fame. Those IMO are more helpful and specific than a generic wikilink to the article on each HOF. Cbl62 (talk) 18:39, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

I'd also be in favor of doing away with stats external links. I remember over the years before I started editing, always being disappointed when I saw "Player stats at NFL.com." I never clicked the link. I never felt it was worth it. Not to mention, there was a time a few years ago when the Wikipedia mobile app would crash when trying to open an external link, so users may still shy away from clicking them. I agree that external links should be at the bottom of the article, which they usually already are, so being in the infobox is redundant anyway. Although I also agree with Cbl that the HOF links should stay, as they don't take up any extra space. Lizard (talk) 16:41, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Apologies for not responding to these last few comments sooner, fellas.  would you be okay with eliminating the College Football Data Warehouse link from this infobox and continuing to discuss and gather input regarding the HOF links? Jweiss11 (talk) 16:50, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I absolutely favord deleting the College Football Data Warehouse links. Given that site's serious and continuing security problems, I believe we should minimize such link.  And, yes, of course, open to further discussion on the HOF links. Cbl62 (talk) 23:33, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Why are years required?
Is there a reason that all the team/years combinations REQUIRE the year to be present for the team to display? For example:

| label2    = | data2     =

Why not just make that:

| label2    = | data2     =

I keep coming across pages where none of the team info is being displayed because the years are unknown. We could also make the default "?". Just a thought... -- Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 22:27, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Zackmann08 the problem is if you pass data2 without label2 the contents of data2 are center aligned, which looks odd if the other lines are not. another solution would be to use,

| label2    = | data2     = or as you suggested | label2    = | data2     =
 * which would not require the years parameter, but would fix the alignment issue if that parameter is missing or blank. Frietjes (talk) 22:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * bleh. No like... But thanks for the explanation! -- Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 23:31, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Year parameters if a coach will be let go at the end of the year


It has been announced and reliably sourced that Gottfried will be let go at the end of the season. Since the season is still ongoing, and he is currently the head coach of NC State, should his tenure at NC State be listed as "2011–present" or "2011–2017"? —C.Fred (talk) 00:27, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

WBHOF tag doesn't work after Class of 2006?
The "| WBHOF = name" tag is not working for anyone using the college coach infobox as it should for anyone after the Class of 2006. Geno Auriemma appears to be the last person it actually works with, but for Andy Landers or Nancy Fahey, e.g., it does not. Other members (such as Jennifer Azzi) can use the infobox basketball biography, but it does not show up in gold and isn't for coaches. Is there any reason this is the case? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Illiniman14 (talk • contribs) 19:47, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Illiniman14, I fixed the typo in Nancy Fahey. Frietjes (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Nickname
Hello, the nickname function does not work for me. I’m not sure if other people are having problems. Specifically on Gus Malzahn Ral 33 (talk) 22:17, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That's because it was added to the doc, but not the actual template. I prefer we don't include the nickname parameter. Corky  22:28, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok. Thanks for the clarification. Ral 33 (talk) 22:42, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Nationality and/or nickname
there was a request on my talk page for adding nationality and possibly adding nickname. any thoughts, comments, or objections? Frietjes (talk) 15:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm opposed to adding the nickname parameter to the template. No need for it. Corky  22:29, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Corky here. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:38, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

I would add nationality. It doesn't always follow from place of birth, and does have additional meaning for Iroquois lacrosse coaches and players. - Mnnlaxer &#124; talk  &#124; stalk 04:40, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * so there are objections for nickname but no objections for nationality? Frietjes (talk) 17:50, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need nationality either. Mnnlaxer, you give some example of Iroquois lacrosse coaches and players that would use this infobox? Jweiss11 (talk) 21:44, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

You're invited...
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football, regarding the issue of whether or not to include the school colors into this infobox. In order to keep the discussion together and in one place, please comment there. Thanks, Corky  23:14, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 9 January 2018
Current template:

| data7     = | data8     = | data9     =

uslaxhof existed as a profile URL link, but it stopped working, so the Infobox lacrosse player template was changed to ignore uslaxhof and just take uslaxhof_year. The Canadian and NLL HOF's did not have profile links, so canlaxhof and nllhof take a year as the input. My best guess at the correct syntax is:

| data8     = | data9     = But the second #if might not be needed. - Mnnlaxer &#124; talk  &#124; stalk 05:39, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. Cabayi (talk) 10:03, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I did it correctly. I took out the second #if, and changed the above. - Mnnlaxer &#124; talk  &#124; stalk 16:06, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Mnnlaxer, so this means any articles using uslaxhof_year will need to be changed to use uslaxhof instead, and any using the old syntax for uslaxhof will need to be changed to use the new syntax for uslaxhof? why not just use

| data8     = | data9     =
 * instead? Frietjes (talk) 17:49, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * For the uslax issue, I'll do whatever you say. I'm at the limit of knowledge on this. However, I don't want to change individual articles. I thought we had it set so that articles with both "uslaxhof=profile ID" and "uslaxhof_year=2000" would just ignore the uslaxhof parameter and post "wikilink, year". Articles without "uslaxhof_year" would just post "wikilink", not the profile external link. I'm not sure, but I thought that canlaxhof_year and nllhof_year were not used. Since those two never had profile ID's, I thought whoever created the parameters left off the year. These three parameters were taken from Template:Infobox lacrosse player. - Mnnlaxer &#124; talk  &#124; stalk 22:55, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Mnnlaxer, I see, I have added a temporary tracking category so we can inspect all the articles using one or more of these six parameters. once we see how the parameter are being used, we can address the issue in the most efficient manner. Frietjes (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Mnnlaxer, as far as I can tell, there are only two articles using one or more of the six lacrosse parameters, Dave Pietramala and Don Zimmerman (lacrosse), and both are using uslaxhof_year. so, should we just remove the uslaxhof, canlaxhof, and nllhof; and keep the uslaxhof_year, canlaxhof_year, nllhof_year? Frietjes (talk) 13:08, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Mnnlaxer, or, maybe the better option would be to have these parameters do the same thing (e.g., canlaxhof would do the same thing as canlaxhof_year) for compatibility with the Infobox lacrosse player syntax? however, given that uslaxhof used to be the "id", we should probably just eliminate that one?  Frietjes (talk) 13:12, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I was the editor on Pietramala and Zimmerman. I don't think any article is using canlaxhof_year or nllhof_year. Where did you get that idea? Just to be parallel to uslaxhof_year? I would eliminate uslaxhof. - Mnnlaxer &#124; talk  &#124; stalk 16:50, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrative career (AD unless noted)
Please see Template:Infobox college coach and note the "Administrative career (AD unless noted)" header sections. re abbreviations, VP, SVP, Senior XYZ, Assistant/Associate XYZ, and sub-role (of Marketing, for Finance, etc) all of which can be paired with long school names (ala "East Tennessee State"), so which general format should we be using for non-ADs? We have a large number of variations:

Greg Byrne (athletic director)
 * 1995–1998	Oregon (assist.)
 * 1998–2002	Oregon State (assoc.)

Bill Maher (athletic director)
 * 2001–2003	Buffalo (associate AD)
 * 2003–2005	Buffalo (interim AD)

Jeff Barber (athletic director)
 * 1987–1991	East Carolina (Assistant AD)
 * 1991–1996	Furman (Associate AD)

Mike Hill (sports administrator)
 * 2000–2002	Florida (asst. AD for marketing)
 * 2002–2005	Florida (asst. AD for external affairs)

Mike Bohn
 * 1984–1992	Air Force (assoc)
 * 1992–1995	CFA (marketing)
 * 1996–1998	Colorado State (assoc)

Dan Radakovich
 * 1994–2000	South Carolina (associate AD)
 * 2001–2006	LSU (senior associate AD)

I am happy to standardize the <300 active ADs. Currently, folks are copying/editing to their personal preferences. Update of this template's "Bo Schembechler" (Template:Infobox college coach) documentation/examples to follow based on resolution. UW Dawgs (talk) 06:52, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The Jeff Barber example is mis-capitalized. The Bryne and Bohns example are vague.  It's not clear in those two that the "assist.", "assoc", "and "assoc" refer to assistant or associate AD, if that what's they mean.  The Maher and Radakovich exmaple follow the standard used in the coaching section for associate and assistant head coaches, so those should be the standard.  I'm not necessarily against the Hill format, if that additional detail is deemed necessary. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:38, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jweiss, though I'm just basing my opinion off of which looks best to me. PCN [[Special:Contributions/PCN02WPS|<span style="color:


 * 1) 000000;">02 ]] WPS 16:41, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 20 June 2018
Can you please add parameter birth_name? This is for names that are longer or different than just common name. <b style="color: #0066cc;">—Мандичка</b><b style="color: #6600cc;">YO</b> 😜 16:46, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Why is this needed? birth_name is not a field in other sports bio infoboxes like Template:Infobox NFL biography, Template:Infobox basketball biography, or Template:Infobox baseball biography. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:25, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: As per Jweiss11, it is not necessary and the coach's full name will be the at the beginning of the article. — <b style="color:blue">MRD2014</b> <b style="color:red">Talk</b> 12:44, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Because birth name is frequently different than common name, and is standard to include it in infobox templates for people. This is the only one I've come across that doesn't have it. Birth date and death is in beginning of article but is also in the infobox, so saying it's also there is not a sufficient reason not to include in the infobox as well. Birth name/full name is a MAJOR detail about someone's life, if not the key fact, so why wouldn't it be included? <b style="color: #0066cc;">—Мандичка</b><b style="color: #6600cc;">YO</b> 😜 12:45, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Stray formatting
What's with the "1=" in Coaching career 1=(HC unless noted)? —  Wylie pedia  @ 09:45, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It was the result of an edit yesterday by User:Muboshgu. I think I just fixed it. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:56, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. I didn't see anything amiss when I purged some articles that use this infobox. Thanks Jweiss11. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:54, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 29 December 2018
Change from the code:

to

or

The reason is to fix the current dead links (leading to 404 not found error) whenever "WBHOF =" parameter is used. Most likely due to changes on the website current external links direct to, current "http://www.wbhof.com/tara-vanderveer.html" leads to a dead link within the infobox. However both "https://www.wbhof.com/famers/tara-vanderveer" and "https://www.wbhof.com/tara-vanderveer"(requires redirection) would work. Please make the address modification to fix dead links within the infobox. Thanks.

J1-N9t@lk 13:12, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Please check to make sure that links are working now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:54, 29 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I have checked WHOF links within some coaches' pages — all links are currently functional. Thank you for responding to my request and making fixes efficiently. – J1-N9t@lk 08:35, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Use of the “sport” field
Looking at the verbiage for this field in the template documentation, it says “Sport(s) played (college and higher) and coached, as detailed in playing and coaching fields below.” It is a helpful anchor for readers to understand the types of sports the individual coached. However, I’d like to recommend a couple of changes - one in wording and practice and one in practice only. I think these changes would make the reading experience more clear. For coaches like Phog Allen who were legitimately major college head coaches in several sports would see no change. Thoughts? Rikster2 (talk) 21:44, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) I’d recommend dropping “played” from the verbiage and use of the field. The infobox is “college coach,” so for the vast majority of subjects where it is in place, their notability is driven by their coaching career, not their playing career. In cases where coaches had significant pro playing careers, one could (should?) use the appropriate pro infobox with coaching parameters (see Jim Harbaugh and Danny Manning as examples). But you also have cases like Gene Keady, where he played football in college but is overwhelmingly a basketball figure and has never coached football – I think this is misleading to the reader. To be clear, I am not recommending taking the spot labels off the playing years fields, just saying that this would not drive what is in the “sport” parameter.
 * 2) For coaching roles, have the field used by head coaching roles, college coaching roles, or both only. The article that led me to make these proposals was actually Sonny Dykes. Dykes is a 20+ year football coach (and current FBS head coach) who was an assistant baseball coach at a high school in 1994. His “sport” field says “football, baseball,” which I think is kind of crazy. It also had a parenthetical “football” statement next to the “Head Coach” title until I removed it (it may be back now for all I know) which shows that if you take the current state out to the edges of logic you can do some things that aren’t in the best interests of the readers. Cutting back to head coaching positions in the “sport” field trims this back to the most relevant sports for the coach. To be clear, I am not recommending removing assistant coaching roles from the coach tenure fields, just talking about how it drives use of the “sport” parameter.
 * I support these changes. RE Sonny Dykes, we don't need to list "(football)" next to "head coach" since how it shows what sport Dykes is coaching in under the "Coaching career" section and elsewhere in the article. Corky  23:00, 24 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose proposed changes. This infobox is indeed called "Infobox college coach", but there is nothing that explicitly tells the reader in view mode this is a "coach" navbox. My interpretation of the sport field is that it's a place at the top of the navbox where all of the sports the reader will encounter further down in the infobox are defined and wikilinked—that would include all sports played at the college level and higher and all sports coached at any level, as a head coach or an assistant.  We do run into the admittedly awkward situation with coaches who are active and have histories of coaching multiple sports, e.g. Sonny Dykes.  The awkwardness arises from the juxtaposition of a list of multiple sports, following immediately by the current position fields, which do not explicitly define the sport in question.  I believe it was originally my edit that resolved this ambiguity with the admittedly awkward "Head coach (football)" to populate the current title field.  Perhaps "Head football coach" would be better?  However, even if we scale back the sport field (which I am not in favor of) to those sports coached as a head coach at the college level or higher, we will still have cases with the ambiguous/awkward juxtaposition of the sport field followed by the current position fields.  There instances are rare, but do exist.  Don Brown (American football coach) is an example I can think of off the top of my head. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:41, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Bill Zwaan is another example. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:10, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * We don't need to list anything next to "Head coach", nor do we need to add the sport. Directly below "Head coach" is the team they're coaching for; the information is also in the "Coaching career" section as well as the lede sentence of the articles tells. Both list which sport(s) they are currently coaching in. It's just repetitive information if you ask me. Corky  03:29, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If everyone thinks the current team fields are obvious enough via context even though they are only implied in within infobox via wikilink, I'm willing to accept that as sufficient; I've admitted that the parenthetical sport notation is awkward and less than ideal. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:22, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment - There is nothing that tells the reader it is the coach infobox but the assumption is that the vast majority of those who use it are notable primarily for their coaching career. If Gene Keady had become an accountant after college he'd have no article. His notability is only derived from his basketball coaching career, but if we strictly follow the template documentation it would say "Basketball, baseball, football" at the top, which is misleading. Likewise, people aren't visiting Sonny Dykes' page because he played college baseball or because he was an assistant baseball coach for a high school for one season early in his football coaching career. They are going to it because he is SMU's head coach. I am trying to propose something that works for the vast majority of cases, there are always going to be exceptions - in my opinion there are more the current system doesn't work for than if we went with my suggestions. Rikster2 (talk) 13:45, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Generally support Need to tweak the wording still, but common sense says to limit to one sport if that's where their core notability is from. An infobox is to highlight key points, not to throw everything but the kitchen sink.  This is the equivalent of not flooding Shaquille O'Neal's lead sentece with his minor roles like rapper, actor, wrestler, businessman, philanthropist, etc. (While we're at it, not normalizing with the sport-specific infobox, if they exist, seems to enable a fiefdom to place college-specific stat cruft.)—Bagumba (talk) 15:23, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * which sport-specific infobox would you like to normalize with here? The issue is that there are a preponderance of college coaches, particularly from the pre-WWII era, that had significant careers in multiple sports.  This infobox has been designed to uniquely deal with that phenomenon.  What college-specific stat cruft are talking about? Jweiss11 (talk) 23:32, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Starting with basketball, what if Mike Krzyzewski looked like Gregg Popovich?—Bagumba (talk) 02:06, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Then he no longer looks like his predecessors James A. Baldwin and Eddie Cameron, etc. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:18, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * He also doesn’t look like his ACC peer Danny Manning either, what’s the big deal? Rikster2 (talk) 02:25, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I would say that in the long-term, Krzyzewski is more tied to his predecessors and successors than another coach who happened to be coaching another ACC team for some of the same years. What we have here is a style fork colliding. Perhaps Danny Manning needs to be reformatted to Infobox college coach?  Or maybe we just need one new infobox for all sports figures that serves all of them? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:33, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Even among the 15 current ACC men's basketball head coaches, Manning's infobox is the oddball. The other 14 are using this template.  And we know why that developed like that—because Manning, uniquely of the 15, is at least as notable for playing pro ball as he is for coaching. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:37, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * And I would say Coach K has more in common with modern coaches than with those from the 20s-40s. And, no, Manning shouldn’t be converted to college coach because the infobox is incapable of displaying a large amount of playing info for someone with a significant playing career. Rikster2 (talk) 02:39, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, if he has more in common with modern coaches, then his article should still be using this template because that what's most of the articles for his college basketball coaching peers are using. I agree the Manning shouldn't be converted at this point because of the loss of data. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:42, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That’s fine, but K (like pretty much all modern coaches) draws notability from one sport. I get that it used to be common for coaches to oversee 2-3 sports, but we’ve let that outdated model drive decisions for how we display all college coaches since. Also, the vast majority of college coaches are notable for their coaching career, not their college playing career so in my opinion it is a no-brainer that we should move away from using college playing career to drive the “sport” field. Rikster2 (talk) 02:46, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The model isn't outdated because our mission here is to cover the entire notable history of these sports in the most comprehensive and stylistically consistent way possible. That history will never expire.  Infobox college coach facilitates a more global approach. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:50, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * In the VAST majority of cases, their college playing career is not a significant part of their notability. Rikster2 (talk) 02:52, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * My last comment was not referring to that. It was referring to "but we’ve let that outdated model drive decisions for how we display all college coaches since".  As for your last comment, true, in most cases a coach's notability does not come largely from his playing career.  But in the vast majority of those cases, the sports played are also the same or a smaller, inclusive set of the sports coached, making this issue of the sports field moot. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:58, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Then why do you oppose dropping “sports played” as one of the criterion used to drive what appears in the “sport” field? Inertia? Rikster2 (talk) 03:13, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Because it creates inconsistency within the infobox. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:03, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Imagine Bennie Oosterbaan never coached basketball, but only played. Your proposed rule would remove "basketball" from the sport field, even though he was an All-American in basketball. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:08, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Or with Harry Kipke we don't have to image. Basketball All-American.  Never coached basketball. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:40, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

I really don’t think it’s a problem if it doesn’t say “basketball” in Kipke’s infobox. The infobox makes it clear he played the sport in the playing years section, and the article should detail it. You highlight these inconsistencies, people like Keady and Dykes represent other cases where the current state doesn’t work very well so there is no solution that fits 100% of cases. Rikster2 (talk) 10:36, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it’s a serious problem because it introduces a vaugue inconsistency. If we need to rename this infbox to Infobox college sportsperson or Infobox college biography to resolve your over-focus on the singularity of coaching, then so be it. Jweiss11 (talk) 13:09, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That’s a complete cop out. We are bending over backward to accommodate old timers with a format that doesn’t fit modern coaches. I have no problem saying Kipke is primarily a football (or baseball and football) figure - he’s in the college football HOF, he’s a major college head coach in both sports. There comes a point where common sense needs to supplant a rigid standard. As I said, we already have at least 2 standards and for good reasons. Jim Harbaugh and Danny Manning don’t have the same infobox as their conference contemporaries. And that’s ... ok. It makes sense logically why this is the case. Rikster2 (talk) 13:24, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it's not a cop out. The format works fine for modern coaches.  And the issue you bring up only affects a small percentage of them.  "Bending over backwards" is absurd hyperbole.  You are distorting the dynamics of this issue. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:49, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You know what affects a small number of cases? Adding the sport the played, or only coached at the high school level, to the “sport” field. This is different and/or relevant in an incredibly small number of cases, yet that’s our current standard. It’s absurd. Rikster2 (talk) 00:08, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, because it serves those small number of cases without doing damage to any of the non-cases. And it ensures consistency across a given instance of the template. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:40, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The things I am proposing changing don’t serve much of anything. They create more issues than they solve, like confusing the reader about what sport subjects are primarily known for (their notability is derived from). Rikster2 (talk) 01:19, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Comment - I have to say, with no consensus in place previously I am asking myself why not just go forth and institute what I have described. I have put notices on the college baseball, football and basketball pages for comment several times. This appears to only be a hot button issue for Jweiss. Rikster2 (talk) 13:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Rikster2, the status quo has been stable for many years. You need a new, clear consensus to overturn. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Not if you can’t produce any consensus discussion on the topic and there is no response from the college sports projects to protect this habit (vs. a consensus). Only two others have chimed into this discussion and both have agreed with me. We are in BOLD, revert, discuss cycle land. You can’t just “hold the line” by yourself. Rikster2 (talk) 18:52, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I think it would best to get additional opinions from editors with relevant expertise. As such, , , , , , , can you guys weigh in here? The issue here is the nature of the sport field, which appears toward the top of this infobox and defines which sport or sports apply to relevant subject. My view, which has been the prevailing standard in practice for several years, is that sport field should includes all sports played at the college level or higher in addition to any sports coached at any level; in other words, the sport field defines all sports you will find listed in the playing and coaching tenure sections that follow. Rikster2 would like the field to be more restrictive, including only sports coached, with perhaps some additional qualifications on top of that. In the vast majority of cases, there is no difference here. But Harry Kipke is a good example case that would be affected by Rikster2's proposed redefining of the field. In his view, basketball would not be listed in the sport field because Kipke never coached it, even though he played college basketball and was an All-American in the sport. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:40, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree it would be best to get more opinions so some semblance of actual consensus could be reached. Rikster2 (talk) 04:48, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Kipke seems to be more the exception than the norm—at least in "modern" cases—having been an AA in a sport he didn't eventually coach. Generally, Rikster2's proposal is fine for those whose playing career is not part of their core notability; common sense exceptions can be made on a per-case basis.—Bagumba (talk) 05:31, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to make a change that is more restrictive, the current system is working just fine.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:00, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment With people who played or coached multiple sports usually the years are separated by sport ex, Charles W. Wantland, Bennie Owen compared to Bob Stoops who only has one sport listed at the top of the infobox. So I would be okay with either one of two options. Plan A) Keep as is with multiple sports listed up top (status quo), or my preferred Plan B) systematically eliminating the top sport parameter and putting it where the mult-sport fields go including for coaches such as Stoops.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 16:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Here is an example of the proposed changes in Plan B.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 16:15, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Let me be sure I understand - your plan B is eliminating the sport field and sticking with the sport headers in the playing and coaching fields? If so, that’s a solution I could agree with. Rikster2 (talk) 16:17, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * UCO2009bluejay, in your Pland B, are you suggesting that we eliminate the sport field at the top of the navbox even for single-sport figures and explicitly state that sport in the playing and coaching tenure sections? Jweiss11 (talk) 17:47, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, sorry if I didn't make that clear. I understand that that the downside would be a couple of extra lines, but at least we could 1. put this issue behind us, 2. make coaches that have multiple sports look consistent with those that don't and 3 hopefully make it easier for editors to add information to some of the early coaches who may have coached other sports that we either havent put in the infobox or may learn about at a future date.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 14:29, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying. I don't think this a very good solution.  For single-sport coaches, it's not very efficient to have to repeat the sport in the playing and coaching sections. This would also require tweaking several thousand infoboxes just to bring them in line with that new format. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

So where are we? I don’t see anything close to consensus to continue with the old way of doing things. Rikster2 (talk) 00:26, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Once again, where are we with this? I see two voices advocating the stats quo and four advocating changes. Rikster2 (talk) 15:28, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As you've summarized, there is consensus to not list less-notable sports in a general sports field. The implementation options are between your original proposal and 's. For coaches who also played the same sport, I would even propose no mention of the sport is needed in the infobox. As it is, there seems to be no general consensus across sports infoboxes that the sport needs to be explicitly mentioned.—Bagumba (talk) 16:53, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Bagumba, there's no consensus here. Status quo prevails. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:56, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * How do you figure? I’m pretty sure the four of us could come up with an agreeable solution. Also, can you point me to the consensus discussion that resulted in the status quo on this specific issue? Otherwise, it makes no sense to me why there’d be any particular hold to it. If we can’t get a real resolution, I’m going to feel free to invoke WP:COMMONSENSE on articles like Sonny Dykes, where the individual is quite clearly notable for one sport. Rikster2 (talk) 20:13, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Paul McDonald agrees with me on this. You, Bagumba, and Corky support a change. It's unclear what UCO2009bluejay's position is.  And we still haven't heard from a number of other key editors on this.  My commonsense tells me that as long as the sport field exists in the infobox, it should define all sports detailed in subsequent fields. Should we just eliminate the sport field altogether?  I'm not sure I support that, but it seems better than keeping it with subjective, selective inclusion. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:20, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I don’t think it’s unclear what ’s position is, but why don’t we just ask him? I’m sorry, we aren’t letting inertia decide this. I have put numerous notices in the various college sport pages to take part. If in the end only 6 people care to comment and 4 of them agree, then that feels like consensus. Rikster2 (talk) 20:25, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Thinking about it more my position would be to eliminate it entirely and have the subheaders indicate the sport before the coaching/playing years. I think in the long run it would solve two issues 1) it would look uniform regardless of the sport(s) participated in, and 2) it would solve this argument. I have my doubts that this will be resolved, anytime soon.–UCO2009bluejay (talk) 19:28, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * What is your opinion on eliminating use of the top level sport field?—Bagumba (talk) 01:41, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I’d be in favor of the elimination. The field is useless in my opinion, we can tell what sport they’re in just by looking at their history section and the lede.. Corky  06:45, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

On a related note, I have started to make some changes in the order sports appear in coach infoboxes. It seems like they were always showing in the following order - football, basketball, baseball. I think this is silly. For example, there is no question that Phog Allen is a basketball figure first and foremost. So I reordered the sports to go basketball, football, baseball. In a less prominent case, Chuck Noe is primarily a basketball coach, was a head baseball coach at the college level, and was a high school football coach for one season (while coaching basketball and baseball). I ordered these basketball, baseball, football. There is nothing in the template documentation that dictates the sports have to go in the same order irrespective of the individual, and frankly I think readers expect to see the primary sport a person is known for at the top. I don’t have an issue with a standard order with all things being equal. If we feel like this can’t be WP:COMMONSENSE we could come up with guidance on this. Right now, though, there is no consensus NOT to do what I am doing as near as I can tell. Rikster2 (talk) 15:14, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree, it's common sense.—Bagumba (talk) 15:26, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Deleting the field: Does not appear that  will drop the stick. Four months have passed, but he will likely just maintain his claim that we still haven't heard from a number of other key editors on this. replied, I’m sorry, we aren’t letting inertia decide this. I have put numerous notices in the various college sport pages to take part. If in the end only 6 people care to comment and 4 of them agree, then that feels like consensus. Jweiss11 also had concern that It's unclear what UCO2009bluejay's position is, but clarified that Thinking about it more my position would be to eliminate it entirely and have the subheaders indicate the sport before the coaching/playing years. Afterwards, Jweiss11 reverts removal of "sport" parameter at Phog Allen with edit summary of the proper thing to do here would be to eliminate the field from the infobox (should there be consensus for it), not cherry pick off an example like this. So I eliminated the field, per consensus above, as he suggested. Jweiss11 reverts that too, with edit summary of need consensus first; plus, ideally, a program to cleanup up the thousands of instances of the infobox.—Bagumba (talk) 14:27, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete the field - Just so I can be specific about my preference. Came across another ridiculous example - Doc Carlson, a 30+ year basketball head coach, never coached another sport, in the basketball hall of fame. Sport field says "Football, basketball, baseball" because he was a multi-sport athlete in college. That's crazy - nobody is going to that article to read about his non-notable playing days on the gridiron or baseball diamond. Rikster2 (talk) 14:31, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * And how can we add the missing "physician" and "director of student health services" to his infobox?—Bagumba (talk) 14:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * If we have a consensus, what's the problem? More than likely (as we have seen over the past year), the same group of people will comment to give their opinions and that's it. The group just keeps getting smaller and smaller. We've got a consensus from the majority that have commented here, let's make the change. Corky  19:48, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Given the proposal has now changed to deletion of the the sport field entirely, I would have preferred another call to the related WikiProjects and regular editors for comment before action. What should certainly happen now is 1) the relevant WikiProjects are notified of the deletion of the field and 2) a Bot request is submitted to clean up the several thousand instances of the infobox.  Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 07:44, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. And AWB would work without having to invest in a new bot.  Except even WP:AWBRULES says:  Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits.—Bagumba (talk) 08:47, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, AWB has been used in the past to remove deprecated templates from this very infobox (e.g. ). Are you going to take care of this, or just shirk your responsiblilty yet again and simply quote misapplied WP:X links? Jweiss11 (talk) 14:54, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTCOMPULSORY.—Bagumba (talk) 15:15, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * If you would like to stop editing this infobox or Wikipedia entirely, I have no objection. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:20, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * If you would like to quit edit warring here (or anywhere for that matter), I have no objection. Sometimes we can’t have everything we want. Accept it and move on. Corky  07:34, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The matter can be resolved by one of the supporters of the elimination of the field here taking responsibility for their actions. That requires 1) a notification to the the related WikiProjects about the eliminated field and 2) initiation of an process (e.g. bot or AWB) with a clear plan to deal with the 9000+ transclusions of this infobox.  If I don't see that within a week, I'll restore the field once again.  Despite the unbecoming, shirking example that Bagumba has set here and elsewhere, we ought to take responsibility for our actions, particular systematic changes that we push through against the reservations of others. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
 * There have been many examples of mass changes where the agreement was made before working out exactly how the change would be fully implemented - infobox conversions, coach tenure in templates, addition of new categories, etc. There doesn't need to be a plan for a bot to do these en masse before a decision is made. I'm happy to commit to removing the field where I see it (and I touch a lot of coach articles) and I am sure others would too. In the meantime, removing the field just causes the field not to display so its absence isn't causing the reader much pain while that is being worked through. Just my 2 cents. Rikster2 (talk) 14:31, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Here's an example of the fallout from making a change like this without proper notification: Richard Riendeau. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:32, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I would need to know more about how the error was made and what would have prevented it. Was there something in the sport field that would have prevented a user for mistaking American football for association football (soccer)? The article was in an American football category and the article prominently mentions "American football," but I honestly have no idea how that script works so it's hard to comment. Rikster2 (talk) 20:31, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The fallout is that "football" is being explicitly stated in the playing and coaching sections. That's never been done for single-sport figures and I didn't think the intent of anyone here was to do so—that would require updating thousands of infoboxes, likely manually.  We had a stable format and it's been destabilized.  We could fix this, but that's one reason why clear notification about a core structural change like this is important. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:47, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, seems pretty easy to update the template documentation and put a notice about it on the college sports pages. Probably notify the specific user who created the article since he creates a lot of football coach stubs. Rikster2 (talk) 20:52, 10 January 2019 (UTC)