When winning is not important

For those who do not know me, I started a new job this year teaching PE at an elementary school. I used to teach biology at a high school where I also coached girls' JV basketball. I coached there for 2 years. The first year was horrible, but the second year we had a winning season at 11-10. We would have gone 12-10, but one of the games was cancelled because of weather. I only had 8 players on my team because the Varsity coach decided that he would pull my studs up to Varsity where they could sit the bench and not play. The freshmen team the year before, which would have been on my team, only lost 2 games. My 11-10 record might have been 19-2 if the Varsity coach would not have picked me clean. My team set goals to have a winning season and as a back up goal have a better record than the Varsity team. They made it easy on us because they only had 8 wins.

The Varsity coach has been the coach for 12 years. Guess how many winning seasons he has had?...WAIT FOR IT...WAIT FOR IT...0. That's right a huge goose egg. You tell me how many coaches in America or the world keep their jobs with that bad of a record. I used to have his full record over that time frame and I think he had a winning percentage under 33%. The closest his team came was one game under .500.

After my winning season and another losing season for the Varsity team, I sent a letter to the AD stating that if the position came open I would like to be considered for it. He took this the wrong way and thought that I was stabbing the man in the back. I can see where he was coming from, but I just simply wanted to be considered. I was pretty much told "tough shit." The high school is about to split into 2 schools in 2007. The AD asked why would he get rid of a coach when he was going to need as many coaches as possible in 2007. I told him because he might want to win some games.

I left the school system for many reasons and the conversation with the AD played a role in my decision. Even though I know that I made the right decision, I would have stayed in the county if I would have been able to take over the Varsity position. For that reason only, I would have stayed! I did not get the position and I did not stay.

This past season, the Varsity team, which was made up of most of my winning team from last year and a few other strong players, went 3-20. The three games they won were against 2 single A schools (beat one once and the other twice). Our school is double A, which means we are bigger. The team they beat once, they beat by 39 points. When they lost, they lost by 13. That is a 52 point swing. They won the first three games of the year against weaker teams, and then went on a 20 game losing streak. WOW!

I have talked with people in the county about this and they say that there are 6 people interested in the Varsity position when the schools split. That is enough to cover all of the teams in the girls' program right now. Why wait? The AD said he would be struggling to find coaches...looks like they are there.

Here is a quote from a local paper after the Varsity team was destroyed (67-30) in the first round of the district tournament: “We haven’t had the season we had hoped we would, but the girls had great spirit all year long." “The last half of the season they came out and played. Tonight, they all played and scored and that’s what they signed up for in November.”

Maybe next year he should have the girls sign up to win. That is what I had my girls do. They said they wanted to win and that is what we did. WHEN WINNING IS NOT IMPORTANT...YOU LOSE!!!!