A Tibetan monk can’t call a hit-and-run. He can’t teach a box-out, and he  isn’t interested in throwing any prima donna wide receivers the damn ball.

No, the Dalai Lama seems content to wear crimson robes, spread a message of peace and tranquility and spiritually lead the world’s 350 million Buddhists.

And yet, you remember Phil Jackson’s Zen-like approach with the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. And you think maybe sports and Zen — if not like peanut butter and jelly — could at least go together like peanut butter and banana.

The Dalai Lama has a transcendent ability to lead, inspire and organize. Isn’t that what they said about Vince Lombardi?  

His Holiness might make a decent badminton coach. Or Ultimate Frisbee players could be down for some heady philosophy.

“No, I think he’d want a challenge,” Stephen Mosher, professor of sport management and media, said. “Mixed martial arts or football here in America.”

The Dalai Lama coaching football? Bud Light may as well just admit Miller Lite has
more taste.

Head Football Coach Mike Welch says his Bomber football team employs sports psychiatrists to help his players visualize success.

“Mental training is an important part of every athlete who wants to achieve their full potential,” he said. “It’s a big part of what we do.”

That’s sort of like meditation, right?

Well, maybe. Mosher believes it misses the point of Zen, though.

“The point of the Dalai Lama’s message is that he isn’t concerned with maximizing performance in game X,” he said.

That doesn’t sound like Lombardi. It sounds more like a U-8 soccer coach, someone with as much competitive fire as Pedro Cerrano in Major League II.  

When asked if he would ever welcome the Dalai Lama aboard as an assistant coach, Welch laughed, saying, “I respect the man and what he does a lot, but I don’t know about hiring him.”

Mosher, however, thinks he would make a great coach.

“He’s a phenomenal leader with a worldwide following,” he said. “He’s  got people everywhere who idolize him independent of religion.”

Somewhere in between the Lombardi trophy and the Nobel Peace Prize His Holiness already won, there is a middle ground.  Something deeper, hopefully, than flag football.  

“Sports at its best is spirituality without religion,” said Mosher.

I think that’s something Coach Welch and the Dalai Lama would agree on.