kolmapäev, märts 24, 2004
A Digression
Allow me to indulge briefly in my frustration over the state of Georgetown basketball and this opinion expressed by Mary Beth Sexton:
"Esherick Firing Is Disturbing Precedent"
That precedent being, if you don't win games, we will fire you. Yeah, that's really not a message we should be sending to coaches. Coaches should be welcome to run a good team a horrendously poor performance without fear of being held accountable for their failures. Otherwise, they might try to win, and we really don't want that.
Coach Esherick is an incredibly fine man and a fine coach.
Now, I don't question the first part of that statement. He always seemed like a nice guy. But I don't know anyone who would agree with the second part. Actually, I'm pretty sure the reason he was fired was because he wasn't a fine coach.
When anyone denigrated the team’s efforts or its coach this past season, they were denigrating a group of their fellow students who worked incredibly hard every day in practice, traveled almost every week and went out intending to win games for their school.
We shouldn't criticize people who work hard. Well, I'm sure Whoopi Goldberg works very hard on his sitcom, but it still isn't funny.
I also can’t imagine that another coach would want to come to Georgetown after watching a man who dedicated his life to the basketball program get fired after one season in which the team struggled.
Okay. This right here. This is problem with your argument. It's not one season. It's pretty much every season since he took over. It's not like this one bad season was a surprise. It was the logical antecedent to the last bad season. In five years running the team, he had one good one. And he didn't have many good players left to rebuild with. The team needs new blood. And it needs a new coach. The general consensus among people I know was that this firing was long overdue, not unjustified.
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Allow me to indulge briefly in my frustration over the state of Georgetown basketball and this opinion expressed by Mary Beth Sexton:
"Esherick Firing Is Disturbing Precedent"
That precedent being, if you don't win games, we will fire you. Yeah, that's really not a message we should be sending to coaches. Coaches should be welcome to run a good team a horrendously poor performance without fear of being held accountable for their failures. Otherwise, they might try to win, and we really don't want that.
Coach Esherick is an incredibly fine man and a fine coach.
Now, I don't question the first part of that statement. He always seemed like a nice guy. But I don't know anyone who would agree with the second part. Actually, I'm pretty sure the reason he was fired was because he wasn't a fine coach.
When anyone denigrated the team’s efforts or its coach this past season, they were denigrating a group of their fellow students who worked incredibly hard every day in practice, traveled almost every week and went out intending to win games for their school.
We shouldn't criticize people who work hard. Well, I'm sure Whoopi Goldberg works very hard on his sitcom, but it still isn't funny.
I also can’t imagine that another coach would want to come to Georgetown after watching a man who dedicated his life to the basketball program get fired after one season in which the team struggled.
Okay. This right here. This is problem with your argument. It's not one season. It's pretty much every season since he took over. It's not like this one bad season was a surprise. It was the logical antecedent to the last bad season. In five years running the team, he had one good one. And he didn't have many good players left to rebuild with. The team needs new blood. And it needs a new coach. The general consensus among people I know was that this firing was long overdue, not unjustified.
