by winner-within » Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:30 am
You can follow Daniel "Pinto" Gunderson on Twitter at @pintoKFGO
That Doesn't Look Like Coaching
Mar 15, 2013 -- 11:06am
I usually take Friday’s to sit down and write a recap of what has gone on in the week of sports. There have been plenty of things to talk about this week. Minnesota Vikings trading Percy Harvin, signing Matt Cassel and treating Greg Jennings like a prom date.
The North Dakota State men’s and women’s basketball teams playing in the Summit League tournament and the lack of support for the men in that tournament. You also had numerous North Dakota and Minnesota high school tournament basketball games going on, many of which I called right here in Fargo.
In fact, one of these games and an occurrence in this game is the reason I’m a little fired up today. It has to do with a high school assistant coach and his unwillingness or ignorance, I’m not sure which, to differentiate between when it is time to push and time to let off.
I’m not going to mention the team or the coach and player involved. The most I will say is that it happened at some point during the Region I championship between Central Cass and Maple Valley Thursday night at the Fargo Civic Center.
Obviously, the stakes were high for this game considering that the winner was going on to the State Class B Girls Tournament. The players realize this as do the coaches. So, naturally, emotions are going to be running at a high level.
One of the players in this game was not playing her best. She had performed well during the entire tournament, but for some reason tonight she was having an off game. One of the assistant coaches was noticing this and was getting after her from the bench.
You can understand that criticism will happen from coaches. They are just trying to get their point across to a player. I’m calling the game so I don’t notice all the small things that go on with a team’s offense of defense.
The chance that this player might have been doing something fundamentally wrong is understandable and the coach was just trying to remind her of what to do on offense and/or defense.
It continued, however, and the player was growing noticeably frustrated on the court. The coach continued to get after her, now screaming from the bench. The player picked up her third foul of the first half and looked very upset.
Knowing that she had just picked up her third foul, her play wasn’t helping her teammates and that all of this was happening in the biggest game of her career to that point had all come to a head. She began to tear up as she came to the bench.
Let me say that I understand the overwhelming emotion of this. You’re caught up in the moment and you feel like everything you do is wrong. At this instance, the best thing a coach can do is take a deep breath and see the player needs reassurance, not a screaming reminder of what she’s doing wrong.
Instead of taking the high road, the assistant coach instead began to bark at the player from the time she picked up the foul, to the time she came to the bench to sit down. While sitting, with her jersey pulled up to hide her emotions, he continued to yell.
At this point, he had moved from his spot next to the head coach, down to where the player was seated on the bench. Evidently, he felt that maybe she wasn’t hearing all of his instructions. When he was done giving his talk, he came back to his spot and began to slam the bench with his fists.
The coach must have thought this was going to be some sort of motivational tactic that would get the team to play better. By singling out one girl, giving her so much grief she is reduced to crying in front of her teammates and peers and going back and slamming your fists on the bench like a toddler not getting their way.
Frankly, this type of action disgusts me and it happens all too often at the high school level. No player should be humiliated like that ever. The coach should have noticed that she isn’t playing well. He should notice that she’s very upset and can help the situation.
“I can be an ADULT and say, ‘I know you’re upset but that’s not going to help us right now. We need you in this game. I see you’re trying hard out there. Let’s regroup, we will get you back in during the second half and you’ll play better.’”
The other thing about this is that she wasn’t the only one playing bad. The entire team was having an off game and it wasn’t directly her fault. To take out your frustration on one player is unfair to her and isn’t a good job of coaching.
I hope this coach apologized to this player not only at halftime, but after the game. Letting her know that it was obvious he let the moment get the best of him. That he should’ve taken a deep breath and just let her deal with it instead of getting in her ear about it.
I don’t know because I wasn’t in the locker room and neither were the hundreds of fans that saw the same thing that I did. My perception of this man, along with those hundreds that don’t know what happened after, is that this coach has no concern about his players, just his own agenda.
I played organized sports from the fourth grade until I graduated and I’ve had every type of coach possible. I’ve had coaches that yelled, coaches that kept their calm and coaches that seemed to not really care.
I get that some coaches’ yell but they always realized when it was time to yell and a time to teach. They got that they were dealing with kids that were playing sports for fun. They weren’t out there because they were on a scholarship or getting paid.
Coaches like this make me nervous about putting my kids, when I have them, into sports. I want my kids to have a coach that is willing to be stern with them when they need it and understanding with them when the time comes.
Public humiliation, yelling, screaming and stomping around are ways that my nephew would act if my sister wouldn’t give him his toy. My nephew turns two in July. My advice to the coaches of the world and even parents who find it within their right to yell at their kids or someone else’s kid is to take time to cool down.
It is better to look back on a situation and say that you approached it as an adult than to say you approached it high on emotion and low on common sense.
You can follow Daniel "Pinto" Gunderson on Twitter at @pintoKFGO or friend him on
If you can’t excel with talent, triumph with effort.