Question about a coach's record

[Batman]

I was talking with one of our local coaches today, and he brought up an interesting point about his record that I told him I'd take into account.
The guy was an assistant at his school for years, and filled in as an interim coach for one game when the head coach resigned midseason. He lost. A few years later, he became the head coach and has had great success. This season, one of his team's opponents was on probation and forced to cancel its season. The game counted as a forfeit win.
However, the coach's team scheduled another game to fill the open date, which it also won. So the question is, when compiling his career record, do we give him the extra victory for the forfeit, or just credit him for the game he won on the field? His team only got credit for one win, so I say that's all we give him. But if we're going to count the interim loss, do we need to count the sort-of win also?

 

[TheMethod]

*

 

[Billy Pritchard]

If his team is only getting credit for one win, I don't see how you can credit the coach with an extra one.
Not knowing anything about the situation, it sounds like the state association is probably treating the forfeit as the team win, and the game the team rescheduled as a scrimmage. But then I would look to see what that team's final record was. That could make things more confusing, but I still hold to my original statement.

 

[Batman]

The team was put on probation, after the association-wide schedules had been made up. For teams in the district, it counted as a district win regardless. But the schools could also fill it in with a game -- which all but one school did, IIRC (including this particular school). If they filled it in and played, they didn't get credit for two games on the overall record.
This coach won his fill-in game, but we didn't count that week as two wins. I'm not inclined to count it for this.

 

[spnited]

Unless the guy at some point is closing in on some kind of state reocrd for wins, this is totally inconsequential.

 

[Clerk Typist]

Unless the guy at some point is closing in on some kind of state reocrd for wins, this is totally inconsequential.

Except that some people want to get it right, which I applaud. When you list someone's career record, you don't say, "about 250 wins," you say 256 or whatever it may be. I'd say you count the actual wins, and note the wins via forfeit parenthetically, though this requires keeping track across his career (and, probably, through turnover on your staff).
Similarly, it's best to keep track of actual records, separate from those caused by NCAA-style forfeits, since those disappear from record books like Soviet politicians from photographs. What really happened is what really happened.
There was a similar situation in Illinois where a coach won 300 football games, was feted for it, then the nitpickers noted that a handful of wins came in Iowa. So he was back under 300, except the smart people realized he had two records, overall and in-state, and wrote it as such. The IHSA quickly caught on, and now there are two records in the book. And he has 'em both.

 

[Tom Petty]

tell the guy to get over his damned self.

 

[BillyT]

Unless the guy at some point is closing in on some kind of state reocrd for wins, this is totally inconsequential.

Except that some people want to get it right, which I applaud. When you list someone's career record, you don't say, "about 250 wins," you say 256 or whatever it may be. I'd say you count the actual wins, and note the wins via forfeit parenthetically, though this requires keeping track across his career (and, probably, through turnover on your staff).
Similarly, it's best to keep track of actual records, separate from those caused by NCAA-style forfeits, since those disappear from record books like Soviet politicians from photographs. What really happened is what really happened.
There was a similar situation in Illinois where a coach won 300 football games, was feted for it, then the nitpickers noted that a handful of wins came in Iowa. So he was back under 300, except the smart people realized he had two records, overall and in-state, and wrote it as such. The IHSA quickly caught on, and now there are two records in the book. And he has 'em both.

The national record book doesn't differentiate this way, but it does have separate categories for overall and wins at a single school.

As far as the question goes, would he have gotten to play the extra game if it had not been for the forfeit?

 

[EStreetJoe]

Whatever the team's record was that season is how many wins he gets credit for when figuring out how many career wins he has.
The interim coach thing... he was considered the head coach at the time, so the loss counts.

 

[Batman]

Unless the guy at some point is closing in on some kind of state reocrd for wins, this is totally inconsequential.

Except that some people want to get it right, which I applaud. When you list someone's career record, you don't say, "about 250 wins," you say 256 or whatever it may be. I'd say you count the actual wins, and note the wins via forfeit parenthetically, though this requires keeping track across his career (and, probably, through turnover on your staff).

That is my motivation. I'm the record-keeper at our paper for our neck of the woods. Couple years ago I figured up the record for everybody that ever coached football in our county, and now I'm trying to keep up with it. A couple more good years and this guy could start popping up on the all-time wins list. It might make a difference at some point.
He's also on the all-time list for winning percentage, which would be affected by an extra win. So when we update our local record book for next season it'd be nice to have it right.

 

[alleyallen]

I agree with many people on here. He can't have one win more than the team, since the win came coaching the team. Whatever the team's record is is what his record is.