Month: June 2015

How to fire a coach

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A local high school coach has caused a mini-uproar in the media this week. Kirk Fredericks, the fourteen year veteran baseball coach at Lincoln-Sudbury High School, was informed by administrators recently that he would not be invited back to coach next year.

Fredericks won three state titles in 14 years, made the state tournament every year and posted an enviable 269-68 record during that time. So why was he fired? According to many in the sports media, it is because of entitled parents who prefer an environment where their children are coddled instead of being driven to be the best.

No one knows this, of course, but sports media types are off and running with these theories anyway. And, full disclosure here, I have no idea why Fredericks was fired. This may be the most unjust decision in sports since Tom Brady was suspended four games for… what again? But can we not consider an alternative?

I get it. L-S makes for a waaay too convenient foil. Leafy and tony, both towns play right into the stereotype of entitled and connected parents. As the brother and brother-in-law of longtime high school coaches, I have heard for decades about complaints from parents that challenge even the most experienced and thick-skinned coach. And tales of school principals and superintendents unwilling to stand up for their coaches are legion.

But what about the other scenario? What if Fredericks did call one of his players a douche as alleged? What if that was a pattern with that player and others? It happens. All the time. Bad coaching at our youth and even high school levels is an epidemic in the United States. Too many “daddy” coaches channeling their inner Bill Belichick or Knute Rockne.

We know something about this. When our oldest daughter was ready for summer travel teams, we ended up seeking out teams that were an hour or more away from home because we wanted to make sure the coaching fit was a good one. And that was because her high school coach was a bully. Oh, he could coach. His record was similar to Fredericks’ minus the state titles. But he had skated for years because he was successful.

Before our daughters entered high school, I witnessed a spectacle at a state tournament game that I was sure would get him fired. It didn’t. Once our daughters were playing at the high school level, we saw up close his bloodied hands from punching chain-link fences and his inappropriate behavior in-game and after games – whether it be directed at umpires or his own teenage players.

For all of the perceived power of parents, it is hard to fire a coach. Especially one that has had success. Who speaks up and when? We were cowards. We waited until our oldest daughter graduated and could no longer be hurt – in terms of playing time or self-esteem. We did it because he crossed the line. He had taken his two best players, the two players who loved the game more than anyone and made them contemplate quitting. He squeezed all the joy out of the game for them and the team. He demeaned them and made them question their abilities.

We finally spoke up. And when we did it unleashed a torrent of similar comments from other parents as well. It took some months but the administration told him that he was no longer welcome to coach at Milton High School. Hooray. We had won.

This week, just four years after being let go by Milton, that coach will attempt to win a state championship with another high school, another group of teenage athletes. Our own program here in Milton has struggled through four years with losing records.

Did we win? Or like much of our policing activity, did we just push the crime into a different neighborhood? Here’s hoping that he learned a lesson and that this new group of high schoolers wants to win, in part, for their coach and not in spite of him.

Coaches, take care with your players – you are molding young men and women. Parents, please don’t complain about playing time or when the coach criticizes your son or daughter. But do speak up, loudly, when your child is being demeaned, belittled, bullied. Wins are not worth it. Character is.

Lewiston and Bates; Muhammad and Brenna

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Our daughter graduated from Bates College last month, 50 years after Lewiston, Maine had its moment in the national spotlight as the location of the second heavyweight title fight between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali. Graduation was a special time marked by ceremony, plenty of emotion, and good old-fashioned parent pride. Brenna was recognized by Bates for being particularly involved in the Lewiston community during her four years there. She involved herself through the Harward Center and helped to coordinate Project StoryBoost, a volunteer led program that had Bates students reading to early elementary aged kids in the Lewiston public schools.

These days in Lewiston some of those kids are young Somalis named Muhammad. In 1965, that would have been unimaginable. Then local news accounts of the Ali-Liston fight used the name Cassius Clay to describe the fighter that had recently converted to the Nation of Islam. Lewiston, and much of white America, could not accept the change.

In 2001, the first Somali immigrants arrived in Lewiston after escaping a dangerous environment in their homeland. Soon many other Somalis followed. Before long, it became a full-blown crisis with the then-mayor issuing a call for the Somalis to stop coming. Bates College and many others took the lead on welcoming the city’s newest residents in the face of growing hostility. Just fourteen years later, real progress has been made. Somalis have opened businesses along Lisbon Street, work in increasingly visible jobs in the hospitality industry, and have steadily increased their participation in the civic life of this formerly predominately white working class city.

Much more remains to be done. Somali children enter an underresourced school system still ill-equipped to accommodate their needs. Until fairly recently, it was impossible to find a children’s book in the Lewiston area that featured a Muslim character or pictured a woman wearing a hijab. Thanks to Bates professor Krista Aronson and children’s book creator Annie Sibley-O’Brien, the Bates College Picture Book Project now features hundreds of books published in the United States since 2002 with characters of color.

Some whites in Lewiston still are suspicious of the Somalis. Cultural divides abound.

But Lewiston has changed a lot since 1965 and changed for the better. Baxter Brewing and a LL Bean call center now call Lewiston home. The city rejected a gambling referendum In 2011 that would have brought a casino to the Bates Mill complex. Instead, Bates College is free to ponder what an investment in downtown Lewiston might look like for the school. Dorm. Offices. Museum. Community space.

It’s challenging for a small liberal arts college with just 1,700 students to make a significant economic impact in its local community. Bates has done a good job in the last decade of building strong ties to Lewiston and to the Somali population. Now is the time for Bates to take the next step and invest in downtown Lewiston, home to many Somalis. Such a commitment would signal a lasting partnership between an elite institution and its working class host.