NEVER BEEN THERE
Everyone has an opinion, especially when it comes to sports-I’m mainly talking about second-guessing; and boy do sports fans love to second guess a coach.
For instance, I really enjoy watching the Detroit Tigers. I like their manager Jimmy Leyland; I enjoy watching players like Brandon Inge, Justin Verlander, ‘Mags’ and of course Placido Polanco. These guys work their asses off and give 100 % each and every day. Currently they are on the verge of clicnhing their division if they can win one game out of their last two (or if the Minnesota Twins happen to lose one of the their last tw0)
Last week in a Detroit newspaper I read where some Tigers fans called out Leyland for a couple of moves he made that didn’t help the team win a game. Then a few games later I listen to more fans on sports talk radio call him a genius. I’m sure it’s human nature to question your manager (most do it in the workplace-the minute the boss makes a decision there’s always Harry , down at the corner desk mumbling under his breathe that the boss made a bad move and he doesn’t agree)
I applaud Leyland and every other coach out there that sticks their neck out and makes a move in the heat of the battle. The magic phrase in that last sentence? ‘Heat of the battle’. Something 99% of the people doing the second guessing have never been in. It’s easy to sit behind your computer and blast a coach on a message board or a blog. It’s real easy to dial up your local sports talk radio show and cry about your manager making the wrong move…after the fact!
This afternoon I listened to Scott Van Pelt of ESPN radio discuss the University of Oregon football situation which occurred on opening night. A star player from Oregon was suspended for the season by the coach, Chip Kelly for punching an opposing player, on the field, after the game. Van Pelt (whom I think does a good job) along with many others felt the season-long suspension was too harsh. First off, how does he know? Actually, what does he know? Van Pelt doesn’t have a clue as to the history of that player, the coach and the team behind the scenes.
Sports is a big part of our everyday lives; many of us live and breathe it but it’s unfortunate that the sports-world is caught up in second guessing the people with the heart, courage, and knowledge to make split-second decisions…in the heat of the battle; something ‘Harry’ from the corner cubicle will never know. What I would really like to see is more of these second-guessers take a shot at coaching. They can start in their own neighborhood and coach youth teams. Then, I think they would get a totally different perspective.
Fanhouse on New Mexico football coach and his situation with an assistant coach.
In that moment, he grabbed Gerald, an assistant who had followed him halfway across the country from Illinois. An altercation ensued. When the dust cleared all that was certain was that Gerald had a split lip. And two coaching careers were beginning to unravel, the coda to an argument from earlier in the day, an argument with a decade of history.
Detroit Free Press on a high school football coach fired just a few games into his first season at the school.
“I don’t know how much I want to go into depth on it, but I had to step down,” said Kumasi, who became head coach in March. “They did some more internal things and without going real in-depth into it, I had to step down.”
LA Times on a high school basketball coach who has been accused of unwanted sexual advances.
Russell Otis was “a predator” who used his position as boys basketball coach at Compton’s Dominguez High School to try and pressure one of his young players into a sexual encounter with him, a prosecutor alleged in court Thursday.
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“When you set goals, something inside of you starts saying, “Let’s go, let’s go,” and ceilings start to move up.”
-Zig Ziglar
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
Tags: Baseball, Coach, Detroit Free Press, Detroit Tigers, ESPN, Football, High School sports, LA Times, New Mexico Football, Russell Otis, Scott Van Pelt, Second Guessing, Sports, Sports Talk Radio, University of Oregon, Zig Ziglar
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