“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.”
-Benjamin Franklin
You just have to love all the people who think they can do a better job than the current coach. You know, the people who think ‘coach so and so‘ should play this guy, or the coach should’ve made a different call late in the game. Better yet, they complain about someone close to them who didn’t get in the game or played very little.
The media is great at this. So many writers pop up all over the place thinking they have the answers. It’s easy to sit behind a computer the following morning, look over stats and notes, and then write about what the coach should’ve done.
Everyone has the answers. After the fact…
If you’re a coach, you don’t have to listen to the naysayers, most of them don’t have a clue anyways. As a head coach of a Junior College basketball team, I will listen to feedback from people who know the game, have played it at some level or have coached it. You can tell in a person’s voice if they have the best interest of the team in their words.
Receiving feedback is the norm in the coaching profession – but when people begin to give their opinion, and they’re only in it for their kid, you need to let it go in one ear and out the other.
Charlie Weis, head football coach at Notre Dame takes a lot of heat from everyone. I saw a quote from his athletic director Jack Swarbrick on all the nonsense written by Jim Litke from the Conn Post “We’re doing great. You have to let the whole season play itself out and compare it to the season before.”
Tom Donelly and his awards for coaching…they go in the river or garbage. New York Times on a very good Cross-Country coach.
“I do feel bad about that trophy I threw in the Mississippi, because you don’t want to pollute an important, historic waterway,” he said. “But I don’t want any of those trophies. I appreciate the gesture, but a coaching award distracts from the essence of a coach’s job, which is to educate the students. You can only justify the existence of a team at a college campus if being on the team benefits the athletes’ educational experience.
“Being a truly committed member of a team can be a highly valuable learning experience. That’s what is important, not some trophy.”
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
Filed under: Basketball, Coach, Haverford College, Junior College, Tom Donnelly | Tagged: Basketball, Notre Dame football, Coach, Athletic Director, Sports, Cross-Country, Junior College, Feedback, Stats, Tom Donnely, Haverford College, Trophy, Mississippi River, Jack Swarbrick
