muskie sports
Homepages
What's new at NL...
If you have read about the "resignation" of Muscatine's Basketball coach, Terry Youngbauer, you have read about how small town politics play out. TY is what the kids called him.
TY's players respected him. He started a relationship w/ the boys very early on. He established a friendship w/ them & parents to help them along. When the kids were called in last year to give negative input, (because of A NEGATIVE LETTER written), noone shared, they supported him. This year, another NEGATIVE LETTER was shared. The people that were in contact with him, again did not want to share negative opinions.
The team hasn't had a great win record. TY yelled at his kids @ times? SO? For crying out loud, the kids are in High School! If they want to get a college scholarship, go to the big leagues, are those coaches gonna molly coddle them? Are they gonna listen to the parents worrying about "little Johnny" getting his feelings hurt? HECK NO! We tell our son that it's an honor to have a coach be hard on him. It's a sign that that coach sees promise & possibility for him to succeed.
TY made a connection with his players early on. He earned their respect. There is so much more to sports than winning in high school. Sportsmanship, respect, team spirit, & friendship come to mind. Learning to be a tough competitor, yet accepting defeat will stand all of our children in good stead in their lives. A win/lose record isn't what a high school teacher should be judged on. A record needs to be established about the difference a coach, (or teacher, administrator or counselor), has made in a child's life.
That should be all that matters at this stage of our children's lives.
TY's win record, 2 conference champs (i think), and state tourney appearance was not bad given the tough competition in the area. go back and look at the record between ed ware and barkama/youngbauer - that was bad. let's hope we don't go back to that.
it appears to me that the new athletic dir wants his own guy - good luck to him because he will need some.
