No Losers, Only Whiners (or "Wah")

Please don't think I've gone right-wing nutjob on all of you, but Rush Limbaugh has inspired me to write this week's column.

I'll explain.

Last Monday, Rush was paying tribute to the late Dale Earnhardt and noting that his style of racing was such that everyone either loved him or hated him. If you loved the way he drove, it was because he was aggressive, he wouldn't back down, he was "The Intimidator", and of course, he won. If you hated him, it was because he cheated, NASCAR wouldn't crack down on him, and yes he won, but it wasn't fair. This is perhaps the biggest example of a problem that unfortunately has made its way into all levels of sport. It's impossible to lose something anymore. Either you win a game/match/race or something happened to prevent you from winning. Think of it as sports' answer to conspiracy theorists.

In the world of high school basketball, the blame for a loss seems to only go two ways; either it's the coach's fault, or it's the fault of the refs. I normally sit on the sidelines when reading the high school basketball forum on our local newspaper's website, although I do occasionally post stuff about my alma mater's squad. However, it got to a point where I could no longer just sit and watch fans of another local high school team from Cicero-North Syracuse consistently calling for the head of a head coach whose team was among the best in our league. I think you know how I feel about unfair criticism and unfair dismissals of coaches who are doing a good job; if you don't, you need to go back and read column #18. Hank Fengler has been ripped up one side and down the other all season for a variety of reasons, but mostly because people, mostly students and (I fear) some parents, felt he wasn't doing well enough with the "talent" he had. Mind you, they went 14-8 this season, including an impressive first-round playoff win. However, in these people's eyes, 14-8 just wasn't good enough. I read post after post about how such-and-such wasn't playing enough or playing at all, how whats-his-name should get the ball more, or something along the lines of "I don't know what they're doing wrong, but I know it's Fengler's fault."

Unfortunately, it was a more shocking thread that upset me even more. A person who I would say ranks up there with me in terms of level-headedness over all this placed the blame on all this on where it belongs, the uptight parents and know-it-all students. Someone, a parent I'm assuming, responded with a "how dare you" type post, essentially saying that it was his/her right to criticize the coach, since their kids have been or are being "screwed" by coaches they feel are less than legendary (to put it mildly). In other words, calling for a coach's head because your son/daughter is not playing enough is justified because your kid has essentially been "screwed" by someone who you of course know more about the game than. This is a joke. If the coach didn't know what he was doing, he wouldn't have the job. That guy worked his way up through the ranks (CYO, freshman, JV, and so on), and devotes a lot of his time to working with these kids to make them better athletes and better people (better people than their parents in some cases, it seems), and for not a lot of money I might add. If they lose, if their system doesn't work, if the kids aren't inspired and just don't feel like playing, I can see a coach getting fired. However, that should be in only those cases, remember, it's only HIGH SCHOOL, not college, not the pros.

Now to the other "usual suspects" when the team loses: the refs. Far be it for me to take up for referees, especially when I occasionally have the penchant to voice my displeasure with a call or in some cases throw my foam "bad call brick" at the TV. However, some people just seem to use referees as a convenient crutch when their team loses: "we lost, therefore, it's the ref's fault, cuz he called everything against us, and did you notice the fouls were 10-6 or whatever against us..." Again, I unfortunately have to point the finger at C-NS, and in this case a certain parent (if you're reading this, you know who you are), who has gotten a reputation for yelling and screaming his disgust with every call that goes against his team. As a longtime sportswriter, I have seen a lot of games and I have seen a lot of parents. I've even seen a parent ejected from a college game for yelling at the refs. Now maybe this person said "the magic word" or something, but his behavior wasn't anywhere near as bad as this particular C-NS parent. I'm glad others have stepped up to take issue with this guy and how he is giving their school a very bad name.

My alma mater was involved in a very exciting first round playoff game last week, where they came back from 11 behind in the closing minutes to win. The first reaction from the opposing team's fans was predictable, that the go-ahead basket by our point guard should not have counted due to "an obvious charging call". Let me right here note that there were no, absoultely zero charging fouls called in the entire game if memory serves. Anyhoo, closer examination of the situation revealed that the ref making this call has a son who plays on my school's JV squad. An obvious conflict of interest in many eyes. This may be true; however, I have to give a ref the benefit of the doubt that he will be objective. Let's face it, in the heat of competition, when you are running up and down the court trying to watch the action, there is little chance you can think to yourself, "now remember, I have to make sure I tilt the calls toward my son's school..." This unfortunately led to an increasingly inappropriate series of posts that eventually caused the whole subject to get deleted (and perhaps rightly so, in my opinion).

I hope more people would just watch the game. Feel free to voice your displeasure with officiating if you wish, but I wish more of you would give the benefit of the doubt to the refs and your kid's coach. This is supposed to be a fun game, a chance to get excited about what your kids and their teammates are doing. It's the time of your kids' lives that is supposed to be all about having fun and loving life, before the "real world" takes over and things get serious and they start to pine away for the days when they had more fun. Wednesday night, I was treated to an outstanding game, as my Wildcats and East Syracuse-Minoa slugged it out (not literally, of course) in an exciting game in front of a packed gym with everyone cheering wildly and loving the moment. And even though my side lost, yeah I'm a tad depressed over it, but there's no excuses. We lost. It wasn't a case of "we lost because..." or "we would have won if...", we just lost. If more people could react to losing a game, even an important playoff game like that, maybe we'd be better people and better influences on each other and the kids.

On the other hand, I just read a post from one of our fans that it's time for our coach to step down because we didn't win the championship. OK, maybe it'll take a little longer than I thought...