Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
It’s only a movie, a bit of cinematic expression, but it is the essence of what coaches faced 70 years ago, and now face with even more virulence by interfering parents and fans. Coach Norman Dale, newly hired to lead the Hickory Huskers in the classic basketball film “Hoosiers” is undergoing an intense interview session by a host of local basketball experts. As he tries to conclude the question/answer session, a fan leans in and says, “Zone or man defense?” Coach Dale promptly ends the session.
Based loosely on actual events, its only make believe, but then it isn’t. It is the reality of what coaches face every day as they try to teach young men and women a game, a few life lessons, and how to handle adversity and success with equal grace.
Adversity and success don’t exist in modern schools much these days. In the era of, “Everyone gets a ribbon, the difference between winning and losing is blurred beyond recognition by the woke crowd that sees success as failure, and failure as success.
A photograph popped up on my OneDrive feed this morning. It was a picture I took 19 years ago at the Class 2-A West Regional in Thermopolis. My son Brian was leading a pack of Big Piney hurdlers in the 110-meter high hurdle finals, a race he won that afternoon.
It wasn’t the race itself that brought back memories, but the interaction we had over the years on the track, the field, or in the gym. It’s hard to coach your own child, just ask anyone who has tried it. Good coaches are harder on their children than anyone else in the program, and the reverse of that is also true, especially in non-scholastic sports like Little League, USA Wrestling, and U14 volleyball and soccer. In those sports, you’ll often find a brat getting away with everything yet still playing every minute even when better kids ride the bench. I guess it’s human nature for those who never accomplished anything on their own and are now living vicariously through their children.
When Brian ran a race in junior high or high school, whether it was the hurdles, the 400, the 800, high jumping, long jumping, or triple-jumping he was always receiving accolades from well-meaning female relatives, girls, or even female teachers. He didn’t get that from his old man. After all the praise was given, I’d pull him aside and we’d go over the good and bad of what he’d just done. If he clipped several hurdles or had to alternate legs in the middle of a flight of the 300-intermediates, we broke that down, debriefing style as they do in the military.
Vacuous praise never helps anyone. An honest evaluation of a performance makes all the difference. I wasn’t the only one doing it, he had great coaches that did the same thing in every sport he played. I was thankfully blessed with coaches who didn’t idly praise everything I did. My friends were blessed as well.
Sadly, we are now on the cusp of the end of organized, prep athletics. We’re on that same cusp in Division I and professional leagues as well.
When professional players make so much money they can buy the franchise, it renders the decisions of the coach largely meaningless. Money talks in the pros, and if the superstar doesn’t want to run a layup drill, he doesn’t do it. The same is soon arriving at the NCAA thanks to the ridiculously self-indulgent portal. Let the kids call the shots. Let them set their own practice schedules, their own level of intensity, and their own style of play. It’s about money, and old school coaches just get in the way.
The end of prep athletics is upon us, and it won’t come from budget cuts, but from micro-management from the central office where clueless protocols make every parent an expert, and every coach a fool.
You don’t have to look far, it’s happening just down the road in our own section of paradise.
Good coaches are being terminated, or leaving under undue pressure because little Johnny or little Nancy isn’t getting enough playing time. Mom and dad soon dream up some egregious act a coach committed, and the clueless superintendent sides with the parents without ever getting both sides of the story. It is rampant in high school and middle school programs across the nation and Fremont County is not exempt.
One cross word from a coach directed towards a player who spouts off with profanity towards the coach , is habitually late, habitually lazy, or who refuses to take instruction, and that criticism is the death knell for that coach. If parents don’t like the playing time their little superstar is getting, just go to the front office and they’ll fire that mean old coach and protect their little darling.
Coaches live in a fishbowl. Nobody cares what the English teacher does after school, when the math teacher arrives at work, or if the art teachers likes to hammer down a few Rondos after work at a local establishment, but if they coach, all eyes are upon them.
Throughout my career, I made it a point to arrive at the gym an hour before a game. If it was at home I was able to help set up the gym or field, and if it was an away contest, I was able to speak with our bus driver and get equipment set before we left.
I did this for almost 30 years and was never late. One day, in the midst of a winless basketball season I left home at the same time but hit a piece of road debris and blew out my right front tire. I changed the tire, but instead of being my usual hour early, I was only 30 minutes early and a couple of kids were waiting for me to unlock the gym.
That’s all the helicopter parents needed as they hovered like circling vultures to wait for a chink in my armor. They found it and found willing ears in my less than supportive administration.
I pointed out the flat, and my previous history of never being late, but it didn’t matter. The naysayers had an angle.
The ridiculous part of this situation was that I’d created it myself by arriving so early for so many years. Fellow coaches often arrived for their contests 20 or 30 minutes before a game, and no one ever questioned them.
It wasn’t the arrival, it was the chance to complain, and complain they did. Those same front office stalwarts that throw good coaches to the wolves today have been around for a long time.
It brings to mind a favorite saying by my late friend Harold Bailey. Harold would pull up his pants, let out his breath, make eye contact with a crook of his head, and say this little gem, “There are two kinds of coaches, those that have been fired, and those that will be fired. You’re always hired as a teacher but fired as a coach.”
As usual, the “Bailey Man” was accurate.