HS hoopster suspended for email to coach

Sorry, SueMe, when you drop the "people who never played sports" bullshit in there, you lose all credibility.
What the fuck does having played or not played have to do with it?

If the kid is a co-captain and he's got a problem there are two things he could have done... call out his teammates to their faces or asked for a sit down with the coach because as a captain he thinks there is a team problem.
He did neither.. he supposedly sent the coach an e-mail (and I'm not convinced daddy dearest didn't write the e-mail) and now that he's suspended daddy won't let him talk.

There is way too much bullshit in this story for my liking.

 

I agree with everything you say. As for the "having played sports thing," there truly are things that SOME (not all, not even the majority of) reporters don't understand - and I've worked with them. They make mountains out of molehills because they've never been subjected to locker room talk, halftime speeches, confrontations at preactice, disagreements etc.

In this case, the profanity is an issue, but I'll bet my life savings the coach has dropped a few F-bombs on the kids at halftime or after games.

I've worked with a guy who based his entire high school gamer on the fact a coach called a lineman "fat." He villified the coach despite the kid laughing it off. I should mention, the write, too, was overweight and never played sports.
He only got the "quote" because he was roaming the sidelines as time wore down.

There are just some stories that aren't stories, but some people don't realize that. That's all I'm really saying.

 

While this isn't a story that I would have ran in print, I think I would have let one of my guys run with it on a blog.
I can't recall a preps program where drinking wasn't considered an offense. The kid should have been pissed.
He speaks his mind and is suspended. Another kid BREAKS THE LAW and it's all good?
Tell the coach to go fuck himself.

 

You do not know Riddick if the other kid broke the law.
10 kids were arrested, no names are released, you can not say then other kid broke the law becuase you do not kow that he was arrested.

Blogging about the issue, what the old man said, etc.. is a good idea. But again, be careful about unnamed sources accusing unnamed players.

 

SoSueMe, I'm with spnited on this, for a number of reasons.

The part about "people who never played sports" is crap. Good reporters know how to do their jobs whether they participated in the sport they cover or not. There are a tremendous amount of damn good reporters who never played the game they cover, or at least not at a very high level.

The story you tell about the guy you worked with, assuming it is accurate and not just your opinion, is more a matter of him misreading the situation or letting his own issues get involved in his story than a lack of background on his part. That's a failing as a reporter.

In this case, even if the coach had used profanity in the past in dealing with his team, that doesn't mean the athletes can throw it right back. He's the coach. It's his team and he can do things that they are not allowed to do back to him. If a player challenges a coach, he should be ready to take some level of punishment for it.

And I think the fact that it was done in an email (assuming the kid wrote it) makes it worse. At least have the guts to say these things to the coach's face. A good coach will respect that, even if he doesn't like what he hears, but he is a lot less likely to respect it in an email.

 

Personally, I think if they were set on doing this story, the reporter should have put some more leg work into it.
No. We don't know for sure that another player broke the law, but that's something the reporter should have found out. Whether from the kid, or by having the cops reporter ask a few questions on your behalf.
But the jist of what I was saying is, if a kid on the team did break the law, he should have been punished. The kid who sent the e-mail, more power to you.

 

According to the story, Riddick, the kid sent the email to the coach after hearing about the party the night before.

No. 1, juvenile's names are not disclosed for offenses like this, so a kid would have to fess up to be punished.

No. 2, at the time of the email, who knows what kind of punishment the coach had planned.

No. 3, it's not of your damn business what the coach does to other players. being a rat and a weasel is not being a leader.

Would you be proud of your kid if he had sent that email? I wouldn't. I'd be pissed.

 

Athletic teams are not democracies governed by the principle of free speech and equal treatment under the law. They are dictatorships governed by the principle of "what the coach says goes."

It ain't up to any other player on the team how the coach decides to discipline, or not discipline, a player who may or may not have committed a violation. Whatever the coach decides to do, you STFU and accept it, or you are off the team.

And if the coach says you sit on the bench in uniform, you STFU and accept it, or you are off the team.

And if your daddy runs his mouth to the paper, you're off the team too.

There now, that wasn't that hard to figure out.

And yes, I have played sports before.

 

Well said. Looks like all we needed on this thread was some Starman justice.

I'm not crazy about the story, either. Too vague on the details of the party and the drinking, which are probably a bigger deal than the email.

If you don't really have the story, don't run it.

 

I don't think you run this ... at least not without more reporting, as Riddick mentioned. As a rule, I don't have a place in my section for he-said, she-said stories unless someone can come to me with some amount of evidence that a coach has done something illegal or inappropriate or unethical. Then I get into it. That's the threshold ... you have to give me a horse I can ride.

But there's no end to the whack-job parents who seem to think our job is to be crusaders for their agenda. I had some parent call me a couple weeks ago telling me her daughter's coach is messing with her psyche and ruining her chance to get a scholarship. Wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard that one.

Ended up in a huge argument with her because I couldn't make her understand that, while I wasn't trying to diminish her frustration, this wasn't news. I got pissed off at one point and told her we weren't interested in airing dirty laundry between her and the coach, which I wish I hadn't said -- it didn't come out right. Sometimes you just wish you could reach through the phone and slap the shit out of people, though. I mean, when I pressed her on what the problem was and whether she'd made any effort to communicate with the coach or the AD or principal to work it out, she couldn't give me a straight answer. And the kid is at a private school. WTF? Don't like the coach, send your kid to another school. Problem solved.

 

Sound to anybody else like the kid is just pissed that he didn't invited to the party ?

 

Yup, that's about right.

And I agree with spnited about it not being a story.

But I also agree with SoSueMe that sometimes not having played varsity sports IS an issue with a reporter. Notice that he didn't say "any good reporter." He said "a reporter." And I, too, have seen some stories where the reporter -- not a good one -- made issues out of things that are part of locker-room protocol.

I really think a lot of the problem people have with that line of reasoning is ... well, I don't even think it needs to be said. It's pretty clear.