Attention Should Be Paid To Coaches Who Get It Right

The first job I ever had as a sportswriter was for a small weekly paper in Connecticut. The paper went out of business many years ago but it still rents space in my mind. Some days more than others. Lately, it’s bought up some extra room.

I have been thinking about one girls soccer game played a crisp November day under a golden sun. It was played in the aftermath of a tragedy. A player had died in a traffic accident. Another, the driver, remained in the hospital. The crowd gathered together on a hillside to watch and they cheered their girls in a way that seemed to say the game mattered more than anything and yet not at all.

They won. 1-0. Not that it mattered.

Afterward, the coach stood in the sunshine and watched his team hug and cry, and talked about how it was important for his girls to come out and play. The game did nothing to ease the terrible tragedy that engulfed his team, but it was still important somehow, even if only because it allowed them all to think about something else for a few short hours. I remember thinking these girls were lucky to have him as a coach. He got it right.

I’ve been thinking the same thing recently about the kids at Fennville High School in Michigan. By now, the story of Wes Leonard, the 16-year old who died after hitting a game-winning shot to cap an unbeaten season, has reached every corner of America.

ESPN was there to cover the heartbroken school’s first game back. The game was a tournament game and was supposed to be played at Lawrence High School but someone there got it right, too. Home court advantage didn’t mean as much as making sure an entire community had a chance to grieve. The game was moved to Hope College, which gave up its facility free of charge, to accommodate the bigger crowd and the national media.

The generosity afforded the nation a chance to see Fennville coach Ryan Klingler give a lesson in how important high school coaches can be in shaping the lives of young people. Klingler had his team take the floor with four players and allowed Wes Leonard’s younger brother to sit on the bench for the game. And after the game, in the interviews broadcast on ESPN, he marveled at the strength of the Leonard family and at the community that surrounds his team.

With every word, he kept getting it right.

All of us know about the other end of this spectrum. Right now in Connecticut, a Farmington dance instructor stands accused of having sex with one of his students. There have been other high-profile stories about youth basketball coaches having long-term affairs with players. These are the stories that tunnel into our brains like an overeager worm and stay there, making us forever uneasy about the prospect of sending our daughters and sons out to play.

And we’ve all seen that coach who never has gained perspective, who stalks the sidelines like Bobby Knight, screaming at 14-year olds if they don’t rotate quickly enough on defense.

This is why attention must be paid to coaches who get it right. Blessedly, most will never face the situation Klingler has had to face but sports does not need tragedy to teach.

Take a look at Ken Smith, the boys basketball coach at Windsor High School, who already does so much right. He doesn’t release individual statistics because they detract from team goals. He focuses on defense, which is the ultimate team activity. And this week, when the Warriors dream of a fourth state title ended in an upset loss to Xavier-Middletown, he didn’t rant or rave.

 “This is how life goes,” . “This is adversity and we just have to deal with it. Things happen.”

Skip over to Suffield where Dan Gatto’s team lost to Weaver-Hartford.

“We gave as much as we could give,” .

Just as gracious in victory was Weaver coach Charles Silvan.

“They did a better job of executing their game plan than we did of executing ours,” he said. “Regardless of the score, we were probably fortunate to have come out with a win. They maximized their potential and we didn’t. We’re still looking for that.”

Tell me these aren’t the lessons we want our kids to be taking from sports? Life goes on. Play hard. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes you play better and still lose but in the end, the goal is to maximize your potential.

Finding these guys wasn’t hard. One could find a dozen more examples on Patch without going back to February. The remarks attracted no special attention nor would anyone expect them to. These are just the words of coaches getting it right.