More bad news for the football team

…esp when you are representing your university, you need to be even extra careful, esp right before a bowl game which we haven’t been in for 3 yrs.

Who hasn’t tried to remove a boot from their car?

I haven’t.

1. I actually think Hope does the right thing in suspending Ross and I give him a thumb up. All the players mentioned deserved to be suspended, even if it is a bowl game (unlike OSU which allows their players to play in the bowl game). That’s NOT what I am complaining.

2. Yes, at the end of the day, the ultimate responsibility goes to the players to maintain good grades and don’t get into legal trouble. I already said that. However, I believe the coaches share some responsibility too. It isn’t enough just to say you have to maintain a 2.0 GPA at the beginning of the semester and expect the players will undoubtedly follow through. If the players deem the coaching staff as not serious about what they say, they tend to slack off, and the coaches bear some responsibility too.

People keep giving excuses to the players (they are just being college kids and who haven’t done that), then precisely b/c of that, the coaches should pay more attention and work more with the kids, like giving them enough warning and help when their grades start to suffer – not when it is too late and have to be suspended. Likewise, Beckford has a history of running into the law. Obviously the DUI is Beckford’s fault, but I’d think that if the coaching staff do their job and really get the msg across to Beckford, it could have been avoided.

3. Normally, I’d give the benefit of doubt to the coaching staff (b/c as I keep saying, it’s ultimately the players’ bad decision). But if time and time again we see players running into trouble, I can’t help but think that the coaching staff is not doing good enough a job. Yes, they hand out the discipline action like they say they would, but they didn’t do a good job in getting the players to understand the msg across in the first place. Prevention is better than cure. Being proactive is better than handing out suspensions after the fact. That’s the difference between good coaches and bad coaches.

4. If you listen to players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Bill Walton, they praise John Wooden not only for the basketball lessons, but for Coach to make them a better person, on and off the court. The same can be said for Dean Smith (ask MJ), Coach K (as guys like Battier and Grant Hill who show up on his record-breaking win this year testify) – the coach helps them grow from boys to men. That is what separates the “good” coach and “great” coach. And that is what separates the truly great coach like John Wooden and the “great only in the win column” coach like Bobby Knight. If coaches are getting credit for the players’ good decision, then we can’t just say “it’s the players’ stupid decision” that has absolutely nothing to do with the coaching staff.