At
East Aurora High School, the boys’ basketball team coaches have a rule: after a
loss, no talking is permitted on the bus ride home from the game.
However,
on the ride home from a hard-fought loss, some of the boys from the sophomore
team were talking. This infuriated assistant coach Arnie Hubbard so much that
he put a 16-year old player into a choke hold to the point where he couldn’t
breathe.
Luckily,
Head Coach A.J. Harris saw what was occurring and was able to stop the violence
before it got too out of hand. Coach Hubbard no longer is working at East
Aurora High School.
Eric
Zorn, a blogger for the Chicago Tribune, wrote a short post on this topic. He
focused less on the insane act of a coach choking a player, but more on the
enforcement of an “idiotic rule” like players not being able to speak after a
loss.
What
I found especially interesting about this was not the post itself, but the
comments. While I agree with Zorn’s view on this team rule, I was shocked by
the number of commenters who strongly disagreed.
Some
commenters just ripped Zorn apart. One woman said that Zorn didn’t understand
the importance of winning in high school sports today. She writes, “Coaches get
fired if they don’t win. Zorn is out of touch on this issue.”
Another
man expressed the same sentiment, adding: “[It is a] good rule… it teaches
discipline and respect, which is actually more important than the fundamentals
of basketball.”
A
third person felt the same way. “If you lose, you don’t chatter like a bunch of
idiots on the ride back, you think about why you lost.”
As
a high school athlete, I understand the level of commitment and seriousness a
high school sport entails. New Trier focuses a huge amount of attention on
athletics, and winning is undoubtedly an important aspect of New Trier sports.
However, I have never heard of rule this outrageous and demeaning. This rule focuses
too much on the outcome – winning or losing - and undermines what I personally
think are the more important values: hard work, good sportsmanship and learning
from your mistakes.
I
agree 100% with what Zorn has to say. “It’s a stupid rule to treat every loss
as though it’s some occasion for reproachful introspection and gloomy silence.
It’s a game.”
What
do you think?
The full story can be found here.
I also agree that this is a ridiculous rule. I would think that after a loss it would be important to talk about the game to try to figure out why they did lose, and how they can improve for next time. This rule definitely does put a focus on the wrong sort of values. Also, I would think these bus rides home would be an important time to build stronger relationships between teammates, which could improve the teamwork during their games, leading to more winning.
ReplyDeleteElise,
ReplyDeleteGood post here. What a sad practice! (Though when I played tennis in school we'd get a fast food dinner if we won). I like the way you extend Zorn's post by focusing on the comments. You might analyze the commenters' language a little further, though.