I posted this on the Tariq Owens thread, but it seems like it might worth posting here too.
Still don't get the venom that comes out against Coach Christian. I responded positively to the Treg Setty post and wished him well. Yet, as others have mentioned what Coach Christian said and did was pretty much part and parcel of what a lot of us went through growing up. As a coach I vowed never to do those sorts of things and I was fortunate to coach with people who thought the same way. However, if some of you don't believe this has gone on and still goes on (though far less than when I was a kid) you must have never played sports at the high school level, or live in some sort bubble that prevents you from seeing reality.
Coach Christian was tame compared to Coach Bobby Knight and the late Rick Majerus and just so we understand reality here, they were not all angry, conservative men. Coach Majerus was a big supporter and contributor to many liberal causes and candidates. Does anyone thing Coach Christian was less fiery and animated in his comments compared to Coach Nee? Coach Majerus' players admitted that weren't too happy with his demeanor either in the first season. However, when he went 29-3 in his second season those mutiny thoughts were gone.
If I had a dollar for every time I was embarrassed, demeaned etc by a coach from 7th grade on up, I would be far richer than I am now. I remember one time in high school a kid from our school went to one of these elite basketball camps that a university had (those camps were far less than prevalent than they are now.) He told the story that the head coach (now retired, but whom you often see on ESPN) told the campers that whoever won the skills competition would get to drive his shiny Cadillac from the other end of the parking lot to where they were standing. The kid that won was told by the coach not to damage his "shiny Cadillac." When the kid told him he was only 15 and didn't have his license yet, the coach went on a profane rant about not being man enough to take the challenge and this didn't bode well for his athletic career.
What you got with Coach Christian and a ton of other like minded coaches in the MAC and around the country in high school and college didn't come in a vacuum. This isn't even something peculiar to sports, I have seen school play directors sound like the barking head football coach. Again, when I was coaching I didn't do these sorts of things, but to pretend they are out of the ordinary is just not in keeping with reality.
The only part of treg’s statement that I did not like was that Christian did not sit with the players, but we had tough coaches from junior high on up in Cleveland Heights and it made us better men. We were a mixed high school so we had teammates that came from all walks of like and we cracked or ranked on each other for our differences, if Treg was 6’9” and could not dunk he would have got ranked for his accent and his lack of hops, but his teammates would have loved him, we had a teammate that was huge and we called him House and House is one of the most beloved Tiger’s. I think a lot of us felt Treg’s pain but forgot what it was like when we came up. We had some crazy coaches who would rip you and then put you back together.
With Christian, we would have been an upper tier MAC, providing that we did not hook the Nature Boy up.
Last Edited: 3/31/2019 2:08:59 PM by allen