Tell it Like it Is

'Omnipotent' means to have unlimited power, knowledge and ability. It would follow that one who is 'omnipotent' would therefore be without error or fault. The first person that comes to my mind is Jesus Christ...perhaps others reading this blog immediately thought of Donald Trump.

People of my generation grew up differently than the following generations. Before you younger folks think this is going to be some sort of an indictment...relax...to the contrary. My gereneration believed that athuority was 'close' to omnipotent or a least seldom at fault. Then we had exposure of a President (Nixon) in a scandalous televised verdict of guilt. Years later, another President is guilty of a sex-escapade with his White House intern.

We had seemingly endless pedophile sex charges against Roman Catholic clergy and let's give equal recognition to non-Catholic clergy, i.e., Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggart. Joining the well publicized hit parade of scandals was a plethora of Congressmen. Oh, least we forget the terrific public coverage of teachers having sex with students. Some of our military fellas have frequently used poor judgement in treatment of prisoners and females. Finally, we note well publicized poor police work. I believe it's fair to say, America has lost all innocence and subsequently all respect for authority.

With the escalation of negative social media inter-action and the confrontational posturing of many parents, I believed coaches needed to discard their once isolation attitude towards being questioned about their decision making process. Growing up as a 1950's athlete, I never questioned my coach nor did my parents...he was The 'Coach'...the authoritative person.

Here is my thinking: Parents are going to complain to other parents, school administration and the school board members. Those sounding-board people have no cue regarding the answer to inquires and more than likely they lack courage to support the coach. Therefore, I decided to invite parents to speak directly to me about their concerns. The one stipulation was the parents had to bring their athlete-son to the meeting. That stipulation stopped injuries more often than not because 'junior' did not want to be exposed with his fabricated stories. Obviously, the administration liked this technique; they were now off the hook.

This concept gained traction and along with my Superintendent's assistance, I penned a book entitled, "99- Answers for the Sport Parent." With endorsements from the IHSA and the IESA the book sales were terrific.

The meetings with parents and the answers found in the book were straight-forward. I was never seeking agreement but instead simple evaluation honesty and we always had both objective and subjective documentation.

           (Touch)


Tell it like it is