The 25 best fictional coaches

Jason Sudeikis' American football-turned-international football coach began life as an ad for the Premier League. Many years later, Ted Lasso became the main character of his own Apple TV+ show. Immediately, "Ted Lasso" became a sensation. He's now arguably the most-iconic fictional coach, and the show, and Sudeikis, have taken home numerous Emmys.

We’re talking about the coach Finstock from the original movie version of “Teen Wolf ”— the guy who coaches Michael J. Fox as a teenage basketball player who is also a werewolf. Finstock shaves at his desk. More importantly, he gives great advice, such as never play cards with a guy whose first name is the name of a city.

Dale may be the most iconic movie coach of them all, at least among basketball fans. Sure, in “Hoosiers” he only coaches a high school basketball team in Indiana. That’s not the most exciting thing. Ah, but what if he’s played by Gene Hackman just oozing gravitas? Now we’re talking.

When Gordon Bombay starting coaching, it was a community service deal for a drunken driving case. At first, he’s a hotshot lawyer who doesn’t care about his kids. The next thing we know, District 5 had become the Ducks, and by “D2: The Mighty Ducks” he was helping Team USA take down hockey juggernauts Iceland in the Junior Goodwill Games.

We’re talking about the version of Buttermaker played by Walter Matthau in the original “Bad News Bears.” Billy Bob Thornton isn’t terrible, but he doesn’t have the same hangdog pathos of Matthau. Buttermaker is not likable. He’s a heavy-drinking lout who probably shouldn’t be coaching kids. Fortunately for our enjoyment, he does.

Dunlop isn’t just a coach, but he’s a player as well. That’s what happens when your hockey team is so hard up for cash. In “Slap Shot,” Paul Newman plays a graying hockey veteran on his last legs. He’s foul-mouthed and conniving, but you can’t take your eyes off him.

We couldn’t keep a guy who is the main character on a show called “Coach” off this list. An entire sitcom is dedicated to coach Fox’s adventures at Minnesota State. It’s the quintessential role of Craig T. Nelson’s career. Plus, if he was able to keep his job for multiple seasons, he had to be at least pretty good.

Here’s another player/coach, but he’s also an owner to boot. Yes, Jackie Moon is a Renaissance man in “Semi-Pro.” Of course, he’s also not really good at any of those things. Hey, at least he fought a bear.

“Cool Runnings” is based on a true story, but the characters are not real people. That includes Irv Blitzer, played by the lovable John Candy. He knows that the Jamaican bobsled team is up against it, but he gives it his all. That makes him a delightful underdog.

To some, Burgess Meredith will always be the Penguin. However, to others, he’s Mickey, the trainer for Rocky Balboa for the first three “Rocky” films. Mickey is with “Rock” from his time as an underdog to when he becomes the biggest boxer in the world. Then he dies, which is a bummer.

Hey, it’s Gene Hackman again! “The Replacements” isn’t quite as good of a movie as “Hoosiers,” but it’s a solid sports comedy. Hackman’s McGinty finds himself coaching a bunch of replacement players during a football strike. Scabs are a tricky subject, but McGinty supports his players and molds them into something special.

Lou Brown could just give up. After all, the owner of the Cleveland Indians in “Major League,” Rachel Phelps, wants the team to fail. Instead, Brown encourages his ragtag crew to come together to spite her and to give the city of Cleveland some joy. Thanks to some overlooked players, and former felons, the Indians make it happen.

Coaching a women’s baseball team was supposed to be an easy gig for Dugan. He’s an alcoholic Hall of Fame player, but he doesn’t want to do any actual managing. Considering that Jimmy is played by Tom Hanks in “A League of Their Own,” you can probably guess that he eventually turns things around. He also delivers one of the most memorable lines in sports movie history: “There’s no crying in baseball!”

Golf coaches don’t get a lot of love. You don’t see them when a golfer is on the links. They exist, though, and the job Chubbs did is really impressive. When he meets Happy Gilmore, he’s a hotheaded former hockey player with a big drive and not much else. Chubbs is able to turn Happy into a real golfer, even though he has a fake hand thanks to an encounter with an alligator.

Pat Morita won an Oscar for playing Kesuke Miyagi in “The Karate Kid.” That’s impressive in its own right. His methods are odd. He’s fighting a lot of personal demons. And yet he’s able to teach Daniel LaRussa to be the best around. You also don’t want to mess with him. Even in his advanced age, he could take you down. His lessons are now being passed on through the TV reboot "Cobra Kai."

For years, Hayden Fox was the best football coach in TV history. Then “Friday Night Lights,” and coach Taylor, came along. We can sum up his impact in a few simple words: clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

A woman coaching a football team? It can happen, and maybe it should happen more often in real life if we’re being honest. Goldie Hawn plays a track coach at a prestigious high school in “Wildcats” but leaves that job so that she can coach football at an inner-city high school. The odds are stacked against her, but she takes them on with vim and vigor.

We don’t blame you for not caring about peewee football. Why would you? And can Danny O’Shea be all that great of a coach if all he’s doing is coaching kids who, frankly, aren’t that great on the gridiron? How about this then: O’Shea, played by Rick Moranis in “Little Giants,” is trying to take down the Cowboys, a team coached by his jerk of a brother, Kevin, played by Ed O’Neill. We bet you’re on Danny’s side now.

Coach Klein never gets an actual first name in “The Waterboy.” He still makes this list, though, because he’s played by Henry Winkler. Oh, and he shows us a tattoo on his butt. Granted, it took a great defensive player in Bobby Boucher to turn his team around, but Coach Klein gave a guy nobody else wanted a chance. That’s great coaching.

Most dodgeball teams don’t have coaches. We assume, at least. We admittedly haven’t seen many dodgeball teams outside of “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.” Patches is a legend in the dodgeball world, even if he is now a wheelchair-bound maniac. He also throws wrenches at people. And yet his methods work.

The crew chief of a racing team is basically a coach. So let’s give Harry Hogge from “Days of Thunder” some love. Portrayed by Robert Duvall, a legendary actor, Hogge has to show Tom Cruise’s Cole Trickle the ropes of NASCAR. Hogge was willing to come out of retirement for the job. That’s dedication to the craft.

“Any Given Sunday” isn’t a great football movie. Oliver Stone is too insane of a director to really nail the world of sports. However, he also gives Al Pacino as coach D’Amato a ton of scenery to chew, and Pacino does it with gusto. This is one of the cases where turning into a parody of himself helped him out. Movie coaches should be bonkers sometimes.

Brickma isn’t the manager of the Chicago Cubs in “Rookie of the Year,” but do you remember Sal Martinella? Probably not, but you likely remember the team’s pitching coach, who is technically a coach, in Brickma. After all, Brickma works alongside Henry Rowengartner more directly. Also, he’s played by Daniel Stern, which makes him a delight.

Homer Simpson isn’t a coach most of the time. His primary job is in a nuclear power plant, but he’s always taking on side gigs. This includes coaching the local peewee football team for a time. Was he a good coach? Not really, and he only got the job because he annoyed Ned Flanders into goading Homer to take up the position. He also was overly reliant on Bart, even if Bart wasn’t great at football. On the other hand, Homer (in addition to being the greatest TV character ever) had one thing going for him as a coach: He wasn’t afraid to cut players. In fact, he relished it.

Ellen Hickle isn’t technically the wrestling coach in the episode of “The Adventures of Pete and Pete” where Big Pete joins the wrestling team. However, she is a wrestling expert, since gator wrestling runs in her family. She coaches Pete off the clock and gets a gig as a cheerleader so she can sneak her coaching in when Pete needs it. Considering that the evil “Endless Mike” Hellstrom was willing to transfer schools and sabotage everybody above Big Pete in the pecking order to wrestle him, he clearly needed Ellen’s help.

The California Angels weren’t a good team under George Knox. Then he hears from a young boy whose team has actual angels helping it. Knox could have reacted in a couple of ways. He could have dismissed the idea as insane and not listened. Instead, he said, “Sure, angels are helping our team. Let me know whenever they are around.” That’s a bold risk, but it paid off. Congratulations to Knox for being willing to think outside the box.