More than a game

Sports are supposed to be fun, an outlet from the daily stress and grind we endure. Unfortunately for some folks, sports spills over to real life with its ugly underbelly upset by the harsh realities of working for a living, where it’s not a game at all but there are losers and instead of a field, it’s an unemployment office or worse, prison.

Two sports stories made the national news this week that sparked debate outside the sporting world: 1) Kentucky high school football coach Jason Stinson was charged for reckless homicide following the death of his player after practice; 2) Texas high school girls basketball coach Micah Grimes was fired following his 100-0 blowout of another school.

You know both men loved their jobs and had no intentions of this happening, never expected it. Now one needs a lawyer and the other needs a job.

In the case of the football coach, authorities took action after a six-month investigation. Witnesses report that the 15-year-old student wasn’t allowed to drink water on a hot August day and collapsed. The suit claims coaches waited 20 minutes to call paramedics.

After too many high school football deaths from heat exhaustion, coaches should know better and make sure players are hydrated. Our high school football coach wouldn’t let us drink water during practice but those were the old days. These are the new days. Everyone is supposed to wise up.

Interesting that authorities took so long to file charges when the basic facts were known right after it happened. Perhaps because they waited to finish interviewing close to 100 witnesses.

If you were on the jury, would you say the coach acted with reckless behavior? How ye vote?

I’m not sure what I would decide. Tough call.

In the Saipan Little League when a player gets hurt, they give him water. I never understood that but then there’s lots of things I don’t understand.

Does anyone really believe that there is a good reason to withhold water to a player in need? I don’t know of any but that’s not to say that other people don’t honestly believe that it may be appropriate at times for disciplinary purposes.

If other coaches do it as an accepted coaching technique, then wasn’t Stinson just doing what was expected of him? How is it reckless to do something commonly done?

Will this case change the rules of coaching? Will coaches need malpractice insurance?

However the jury goes, its tragedy on top of tragedy with no one winning anything, just a big loss all around: heartbroken mother and father, family and friends, and a devastated coach. No winners if he is guilty or not guilty. Doesn’t matter. The boy is dead.

The case of the basketball coach running up the score brings back old sportsmanship arguments, but he wasn’t fired for that; it was for not agreeing to the apology issued by the school president.

As a former coach, I would never run up the score but then I wouldn’t complain if it happened to me. I certainly would never apologize for winning a game.

I wonder if it would have been such a big deal if the score had been 99-0. Something about the century number that catches people’s attention.

But what I really don’t understand is how a basketball team can go a whole game without scoring a single point. Usually in blowouts, the defense lets up and doesn’t mind giving up some easy baskets.

That game should have never happened because it really was not a game at all, not a fair contest in the true competitive spirit of sport. But in the end it meant much more than a game; it cost a man his job.

At least Grimes isn’t facing prison, instead he will probably get a better job by hooking up with a team that sorely wants to win.

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[I] Coldeen is a longtime journalist in the CNMI and is currently the news director of KSPN2[/I]