Dual auto cards we'd love to see: Player-coach edition

Cllct concludes its dual autos week today after compiling the best potential dual autograph cards we could dream up for the hobby.

Our final theme is players and coaches.

OTHER EDITIONS OF THE DUAL AUTOS SERIES:

Bill Belichick and Tom Brady

This pair has become likely the most popular and successful player-coach duo in the history of sports.

No NFL team has ever maintained the success the Patriots did for nearly 20 years under the leadership of Brady and Belichick. New England won six Super Bowls and made nine appearances from 2001-19.

Brady consistently took team-friendly deals, and Belichick always managed to bring the best out of players rejected by the rest of the league defined the “Patriot way."

Ultimately this fruitful but tumultuous marriage ended in divorce, and Brady earned the last laugh with a seventh Super Bowl win in Tampa Bay before Belichick and the Pats “parted ways”.

But until Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes win another three Super Bowls, this duo will remain atop the NFL mountain.

Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant

Obviously, Phil Jackson is most linked with two all-time greats: Michael Jordan and Bryant.

With Jordan and the Bulls, Jackson won six NBA titles, compared to five with Bryant and the Lakers. But Jordan was one era of Bulls basketball. Yes, he retired and came back, but ultimately the cornerstones during their two three-peats were the same. Jackson, Jordan, Scottie Pippen.

With the Lakers, it was much different. The post-Shaq, pre-Gasol era was one of hardship for Los Angeles and is ultimately when Bryant secured himself his spot atop basketball as the NBA’s best player. Even though he demanded a trade out of L.A., and ironically nearly was sent to the Bulls, the Lakers stuck by Bryant and the pair guided the Purple and Gold to two more championships before Jackson retired.

Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr

Ultimately, other quarterback-coach combos have supplanted these two among the NFL’s best: Brady and Belichick, Mahomes and Reid, Joe Montana and Bill Walsh, etc.

But Lombardi and Starr were the first dominant duo in the NFL, winning five NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls. That run of success set up the Packers to be the NFL royalty they remain to this day.

There’s a reason the winner of the Super Bowl takes home the Lombardi Trophy.

John Wooden and Lew Alcindor

One of the greatest superpowers in college sports history, UCLA set the standard during the Wooden and Alcindor years.

Dunking was OUTLAWED in college basketball because of Alcindor during this time. And Wooden remains the men’s all-time coaching leader with 10 national titles, a record that very well might never be broken.

While this pair was together, the Bruins won four straight NCAA titles. No other coach and player have ever accomplished this feat in men’s college basketball.

The sport quite literally had never seen anything like it, and still hasn’t to this day.

Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson

While the rest of the player-coach combos make this list because of record-setting success, Martin and Jackson are here as arguably the most volatile pairing in sports history.

Oh, it's not that they weren't successful: The pair won the 1977 World Series together, and Jackson owns five World Series rings as a player, while Martin owns four as a player and one as a skipper.

The two fiery personalities defined the Bronx Zoo Era, with a memorable June 1977 incident in the dugout at Fenway Park epitomizing their relationship. After Martin pulled Jackson from a game in the middle of an inning for what he perceived as a failure to hustle after a ball in the outfield, the two had to be separated in a dugout shouting match.

Martin, who had five different stints as Yankee manager, would later resign his position in 1978, insulting Jackson and owner George Steinbrenner on the way out the door.

Of course, the Yankees would repeat as champions that year — only with Bob Lemon managing the Yankees instead of Martin.

Matt Liberman is a reporter and video producer for cllct.