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Wednesday, March 12, 2003 Page: 1B
By now you probably know all there is to know about the traffic accident
involving the three students from GAR High School, all of whom allegedly were
drinking.
You know that because a pair of varsity basketball players were implicated,
the incident has caused a firestorm of controversy in the area, as practically
everyone has offered an opinion as to what punishment the athletes should have
received.
The feeling here is the school’s administration took the coward’s way out,
leaving the tough decision to head coach Paul Brown, who did what he believed
was the right thing.
Brown, who sat the athletes in question down for all but about one minute
of the first quarter of Saturday’s playoff loss to York Catholic at Wilkes
University, became combative when I asked about the decision process after the
game.
Frankly, I don’t blame him. Coaches react very much like parents when it
comes to defending their own. That’s admirable.
What I don’t understand is Brown’s Pontius Pilate approach to incidents
that take place away from the gymnasium.
“Let me put it this way,” he explained. “We go away to team camp in the
summer. We’re gone away for three days and two nights. And once we leave the
parking lot at GAR until we get back to GAR, they’re my responsibility. And if
anything happens at that time, then they are tarnishing the basketball
program, because it happened when I was with them.
“Anything that happens when under my supervision, I will take care of. …
I don’t think I’m supposed to take care of what kids are doing at night.”
SUBHED
Coach Brown doesn’t get it
It would be illogical, even unfair, to expect coaches, teachers and even
parents to be responsible for their child’s actions 24 hours a day. That’s
impossible.
But there’s a huge difference between responsibility and accountability.
Whether he believes it or not, Brown, as the leader of his team, is
accountable for his players’ behavior on and off the court.
An athlete gets in trouble with the law, it reflects on the team.
Count how many times you have heard big-time college or professional
coaches deliver the following instructions to their players after a big
victory. “Enjoy yourselves tonight, but just don’t do anything to embarrass
yourselves or this program.”
After about a dozen basketball players at Villanova were suspended for
charging hundreds of phone calls to an access code that didn’t belong to them,
this is what coach Jay Wright said:
“They’re 18 to 22 years old. Every coach knows you could get that phone
call, when you’re responsible for 15 young men. You preach and preach to them,
about accountability and responsibility, that they have to be different.”
“… They know what they did was wrong. They also know they’re held to a
higher standard.”
As for the kids in question at GAR, they should consider themselves damn
lucky today.
Nobody died.
Reach Kellar at 829-7243 or jkellar@leader.net