“When you have a good coach who doesn’t play politics, life is sweet.” Or something like that.
This thread makes me a little sad and jealous…. Why? Because I would have loved for my boys to play in a PROGRAM and on a TEAM with a GOOD COACH who didn’t play POLITICS. I wish the same thing for my daughters. I’m envious of all of you who don’t understand that concept. I’m envious of the coaches here who don’t understand that it can happen because they don’t play that game. I’m envious of the parents of children who haven’t experienced it. And I’m envious of the players who can follow the “commandment”—Play so well that they have to play you.
Sometimes, it IS about politics, or as gotwood4sale wrote, SUPERIOR POSITIONS OF POWER. We happen to be at a school with an incredibly corrupt and powerful athletic director /head football coach who has been at the school for over four decades. He coaches and directs that most, I can’t say ALL of the teams (maybe not badminton), follow his dictate. The players, parents, and other coaches who can benefit him are given many opportunities, regardless of talent or “heart”. There is no attempt to hide this. He has been at the school so long that “it is the way it’s always been done”. It’s been going on for literally generations. Too much power in one position. Anyone who has been brave enough to challenge him has been more than beaten back. Get on his **** list and your athletic future is diminished. The lost opportunities for student- athletes to grow and excel at this high school are numerous ----and that is inexcusable. Again, I am very envious of those of you who coach with the true spirit of coaching---for the kids--- and fair and square.
The flip side to him is the summer coach of my daughters’ softball program. He is a decades long AD/coach who is the mirror opposite of our AD. Oh how we wish that we would have moved to his school district on the opposite side of Crook County…..or that he had come to our high school...…Anyway, the point is, you are lucky and dare I say “blessed” if you have no concept or understanding that politics or someone using their superior power, CAN and DOES occur.
At least in the classroom, when you work very hard, you get rewarded with good grades--and therefore scholarship opportunities. It is too bad the same effort, when put forth in the athletic arena at our high school, is rewarded only when our AD decrees for it to happen---and by whom. It is a sad situation that needs to change---and NEVER should have been allowed to happen in the first place.