Why Dress to Impress?

In addition to NFL and NCAA football, my Thansgiving break was filled with lots of college basketball.  Every November, I enjoy tuning in to the various pre-season college hoops tournaments that happen across the country - they give viewers the unique opportunity to see a lot of intriguing non-conference battles that you normally don't get before the NCAA Tournament and NIT begin in March.  In particular, I enjoy the Maui Invitational - the combination of top-notch competition, unique setting and small gym atmosphere makes the tournament particularly fun to watch.  Weirdly, though, perhaps more than anything I like how the coaches at the Maui Invitational dress.

Part of the Hawaii-based tournament's laid back image involves the various coaches ditching their traditional suits and ties in favor of khakis and school-branded dri-fit polo shirts.  Seeing Duke's Coach K man the sidelines dressed comparatively comfortably and casually got me thinking about why coaches normally dress the way they do. Why do basketball and hockey coaches dress so formally, putting on a jacket and tie for every single game?  Why do baseball managers wear full uniforms, as if they might enter the game at any moment?  Why is football the only sport that's found a reasonable middle ground, dressing its coaching staffs in branded polo shirts, jackets and hats?  After all, doesn't the picture on the left look more practical than the one on the right?

Isn't it time for basketball coaches to start dressing more casually on the mainland, too?

Sports uniforms and equipment change so much these days that it seems like athletes are wearing something different each and every week.  It's a wonder, then, that coaches have seemingly been wearing the same thing for decades.  While I certainly respect sports tradition, I don't understand why coaches wear what they wear.  If I were coaching, I would want to balance looking professional and being comfortable, and football seems to be the only sport whose coaches have gotten things right.  Basketball and hockey coaches seem way too overdressed to be running up and down the sidelines and screaming at the refs, while having 70 year-old baseball coaches dressed in baseball pants and stirrups is even more absurd.  In my opinion, it's time for basketball, hockey and baseball coaches to change the way they dress for sporting events.