Tuesday

Champions By Forfeit

I guess if you coach long enough you see just about everything but somethng happened this weekend that still has a lot of people shaking their heads. After winning our first two games by an average of 44 points, we were scheduled to play Chemeketa CC in the championship game of the Edmonds Winter Classic tournament. But less than an hour before the game, the Chemeketa coach sent one of his players into the gym to tell me and the tournament director that because another winter storm was on the way they were going to go home instead of play for the championship. Let me say that again - the team was AT THE GYM and decided to leave without playing. It wasn't like bad weather prohibited them from getting to the game because that would be completely understood by everyone. . . .but they were already AT THE GYM. . . .and neither myself, the three game officials, the President of Edmonds CC, the tournament director etc. etc. believed or understood the stated reason behind leaving.

If there was a bright side it was seeing the reaction of our players who were more upset than I was/am. If you are a competitor then you want to compete and they are competitors! If I ever tried that I would have a complete mutiny on my hands and would be going home by myself!!One of our players even said to me, "If you ever told me to go tell another coach that we were going to go home instead of play I would say "F*#@ You!! We're going to play with or without you!"

Chemeketa is in our league and so barring some unforseen circumstances (it happened last weekend so it could happen again) we are scheduled to play them twice. Should be interesting!!

Oh, did I happen to mention that they were already AT THE GYM when they left!!

1 comment:

bballblogger said...

I am from Chemeketa and I 100% Totally AGREE! This coach is not fit to be a college coach nor middle school for that matter. For the girls on the team and the sake of the reputation of the girls basketball program, he & his asst should STEP DOWN and let someone else take over. Neither of them know anything about coaching basketball and it's the girls who are suffering for it. Never in my lifetime have I heard of a COLLEGE coach not competing in a championship game because he doesn't want to get pounded by 30-40 again. Take your beating and just be glad you made it to the Championship game! Duh!