My grandson plays on the sixth grade basketball team. The coach runs the team like Obama wants to run America.
There are 15 boys on the team. Neat, three groups of 5, right? So, it’s easy to platoon. He starts one group of the five–we rotate that so everyone gets to start every third game. Then, every three minutes he puts in a new rotation of five. Perfect, no inequality here. Everyone plays the same number of minutes over time and everyone gets to start every third game.
Like, Obama, this coach wants no part of making big decisions. He doesn’t have to evaluate talent and decide who is a better player. He doesn’t have to decide who complements another player on the floor. He doesn’t have to worry about results, just equality.
What to you think the results of this system might be. This team sucks. They lose to lesser teams by 20 points. They are lucky to score 20 points in a game. What do you think attitudes are like with the kids? They hate this coach and hate this team. They are tired of losing every game. Parents despise this coach. I’m told one father got is his face for 15 minutes after a game.
My grandson also plays on a travel basketball team. His teammates are made up of the better kids from the school teams that have been kicking his school team’s butt. As the school basketball season is winding down, the travel team season kicked off. In their first game my grandson scored 20 points playing with four other starters from two school teams that beat his school team like a drum twice during the season. Is he that good? probably not. But, cut loose from the socialistic system he was under for over a month he had something to prove to his teammates who were trash talking him in school games. Is he happy playing on the travel team? yes. Did he want to quit the school team? yes.
Lot’s of good lessons here. First, a system like the former Soviet Union will always fail, even in sixth grade. Another coach could have taken that team and won a lot of games. But, some kids would have played less. Winning is important even in the third grade. Talent is not equal. Parents don’t like to see their kids treated unfairly even at the expense of treating other kids too fairly, even at the third grade level. Kids have no respect for lousy leaders. My grandson got in trouble for sassing this coach and he doesn’t do things like that. And, he wasn’t alone.
Finally, what kind of school system pays an employee to do this? Our school systems all across this fine land. Accountability is forbidden and when it is installed the teachers cheat to avoid the consequences. The Philadelphia School System is now the fifth in the country to find widespread cheating on standardized tests to avoid being subjected to the results of poor performance.
You go coach. You go to Cuba or North Korea or somewhere in the world that embraces this kind of coaching. It’s cruel to all concerned and anti-American and doesn’t fit here. Unless you are the current president of this fine country.
