Coaching and Politics

For many coaches, maneuvering around politics is the ultimate survival test

Anyone who has played or coached organized sports knows how politics can affect who makes the team, who starts on the team and what person coaches the team.

In 2000. after coaching football, basketball and baseball for over 20 years, the basketball team I was coaching at Foxborough High School was coming off the deepest run in the Southeastern Massachusetts State Tournament in school history, having beaten 2 of the top 3 seeds and one of our fiercest league rivals on this miraculous shot:

Pat Smith, the young man who made the 65-foot shot, was our unsung, super-glue player who did all the little things that help a team win basketball games. It helped too that he was the QB on the football team.

The team lost in the state semifinal a few days later, but 4 of the top 6 players were returning, including our top 3 scorers. We were very excited about getting another chance a year later.

Well, a week before the first day of tryouts, I was in the middle of teaching a class when the assistant principal knocked on the door and told me that I was wanted in the principal’s office and that she would sub in for me while I was gone.

When I asked what this was about, she rolled her eyes.

Uh-oh, I thought. What in the world could it be?

When I walked into the office there was one chair for me across from a panel of the new superintendent, the school principal, the athletic director, the business manager and the Foxborough High School’s union rep for teachers.

“Sit down,” the superintendent said.

“You recently had a sign up for tryouts, correct?”

“Yes, last week,” I replied.

“Well word has come to me that you crossed a student’s name off of the list.”

“Why would I ever do that?”

“We happen to know who the student is, and he has been so depressed by this that he has started seeing a counselor.”

When she told me the name —- bells went off. This young man’s father was a long-time basketball coach at other schools. Also, he was the color commentator on our games for the town TV station and his nickname for me was “Coach Lucky.”

After games I had heard he had been talking with other parents about going as a group to the superintendent and principal to ask that they fire “Coach Lucky” and hire him as the new head coach. His two kids were coming up through the program and this was his chance to coach his kids.

His plan to replace me as coach was so elaborate that it included running to be a member of the school committee —- an election which he won, And now, obviously, he had been currying favor with the new superintendent (and vice versa) —- who was hired by —- of course, the school committee.

I informed the superintendent that I had the signup list in my coaching folder up in my classroom and I could show it to her and the panel, but she said she didn’t need to see the list because heard from two witnesses who saw me crossing out the kid’s name.

What a total crock.

So, as my head was spinning, I then realized that if they had pulled me out of class for this, what could this mean for my future at the school as a teacher?

I was in my critical 3rd-year of teaching at the school, because if the 3rd year goes well, then I would receive “professional status”, aka tenure. If not, they would have to let me go.

Thus, I asked the superintendent, “Could coaching basketball have any affect my future at the school as a teacher?”

She peered at me in clear contempt and said, “At the end of this year we can do anything we want —- we can let you go and by state law we don’t have to give you any reason why.”

After the meeting, the athletic director was furious and disgusted, but he told me his hands were tied. He told me that there was no way in hell he was going to hire the parent who precipitated all of this. Unless, of course, he was forced to.

The next morning, I submitted my resignation as basketball coach to the superintendent and principal.

My 21-years of high school coaching had come to an end.

I have always felt a special gratitude for all of the exemplary coaches I coached with and most of all, for all of the outstanding student/athletes I had the privilege of working with.

Heck, if it weren’t for this former player, I would have never made it to Foxborough High school:

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Yet, as much as I loved coaching, my first love was always teaching. There was no way I could jeopardize my teaching career.

The parent was not hired. Another coach was hired.

Three weeks later the team won its first game under the new head coach. He started the parent’s son who had complained how traumatized he was by me crossing his name off the sign-up list, and while I was in the school cafeteria the next day on lunch duty wiping off tables, one of the school’s department heads who often had snide, derogatory words for me came over and said, “You know, the players are all excited. I heard them saying ‘thank God we have a real coach now.’”

Problem was —- by mid-season the team had only won 2 games and 2 of the top 3 scorers had quit the team. There would be no opportunity to qualify for the State Tournament this time around. It pains me to say that for the sake of the players on the team and for not being able to pick up where we left off. But, at least it got that department head off my back, that is, where basketball was concerned.

I wanted you to know how my 21-year coaching career ended in the hope that you might have a better understanding of my sensitivity when I read statements like the one I saw yesterday from a Cardinals’ podcaster who said, “let’s see what Kyler does now that he’s in a real NFL offense.”