Bulldog_Chem

I'd be careful with your language about "if they were such great coaches"... Coach Wright left Mercer to coach boys in Indiana then moved back to Kentucky where he spent 8-9 seasons as South Oldham's head girls coach and lead them to several regional finals. He also coached at least one D-1 player at South Oldham. He is currently the girls head coach at Butler and lead them to the regional finals and had them ranked in the state's top 20 all season. Stacey Hall left Mercer and has gone on to be a pretty darn successful AD at Marion County. He also coached Mercer to their only 12th region title. If memory serves me correctly Greg Edwards was the coach at Harrodsburg when they won the 12th region and made a strong run in the state tournament. If he didn't lose a vital piece to his team this year to an ACL injury Boyle would have been a solid contender (girls). You can't ignore facts. Mercer county has run off a lot of very good coaches.

In my personal opinion letting coach Britt go was a HUGE mistake. He's a good coach and a good representative of the community. I wont speculate as to the exact reasons administration let him go, but I've heard the parent complaints for years. Now if I'm hearing them, I'm sure administration has too. I truly do care about this program, I've coached in the 12th region for almost a decade as both an assistant coach and a head coach. I played in the program for 4 years. I bet I have more of a vested interest in that program's success than most. I pull for the titans every chance I get. I even coached there as an assistant under Nelson Cundiff, and if you're going to say that parents and community didn't affect his decision to move on, I'm going to question how closely you're paying attention. We had parents in the coaches office daily complaining about playing time, shots, plays, etc... I want to see the Mercer basketball program be as successful as possible, but to ignore the negative impact parents and the community have had on this program's ability to hire and retain quality coaches is to close your eyes to a huge problem.

I'll back hickory up on this one. I live in Mercer county and the parent situation here is awful. Most of the time it's flat out embarrassing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mercer hasn't had a coach stay longer than 4 years in a long time...I played for Frank Wright and parents ran him off after 4 seasons, Brian Pendegraft only 2 seasons after him, then Stacy Hall for 3 seasons, Greg Edwards for (i'm not 100% sure how long), Nelson Cundiff for 3 seasons, and now Britt for 4 seasons. How can a program build any consistency with that level of coaching turnover? Parents played a role in all of these coaches "resigning". Why would anyone want to coach in a situation like this? Please understand that statement actually saddens me because that's where I went to school, but the fact is, in order to coach in Harrodsburg you have to know up front that its a constant uphill battle with parents.

Cody played limited minutes because of foul trouble. He fouled out early in the 4th quarter. Mercer was also missing a few players, one starter for sure.

A nontenured teacher can be fired without cause at the end of his/her contract. A tenured teacher has earned the right to a legal hearing if the district/administration wishes to not renew his/her contract. It is more difficult to remove a tenured teacher because administration has to collect evidence that the teacher is not preforming his/her job, but if the said teacher is not doing the job, they can be fired.

99% of the time I stick to just reading the threads, but I just cant leave this one alone. I've been a classroom teacher and high school basketball coach for 12 years and I WOULD NEVER recommend education to any of my students as a possible career path. My son will be a freshman at the University of Cincinnati next fall and when he mentioned wanting to go into education and coach I nearly came un-glued. We are grossly underpaid, we get zero respect from parents, politicians, or even community members, and the standardized tests that we are measured on are a statistical joke. In response to BigZig's comment about tenure...I work 60-70 hour weeks (closer to 100 hours during basketball season), I'm required to spend time on my own attending professional development conferences and I've worked with some of them most incompetent administrators in the state. I good sir have earned that tenure. I suggest you teach one year in a local school before you criticize a policy that the teacher's union has fought for and earned. As perspective I teach in a very middle class high school with relatively good parent support and a low rate of poverty. I can't and don't want to imagine what teachers in extreme urban or extreme rural schools have to put up with.

As a coach I have 2 rules that need to be changed... 1.) 40 second shot clock. There is no strategy in holding the ball for 2-3 minutes. Its painful to watch and doesn't promote the game. Don't tell me about cost either, just have the booster clubs not pay for a holiday tournament or summer travel. khsaa is already mandating 3 officials for varsity play, what's a fourth to run the shot clock? 2.) With the emphasis khsaa puts on player safety it should be mandatory for each member school to employ a certified trainer to be at every practice and every game.

Like I said sportsmaniac, I intentionally schedule a game or two that I know going in we're a HEAVY underdog. It's an opportunity to teach. I expect to make the regional tournament every season and when we do, we are playing as an underdog. I don't want that tournament game to be the first time we've been in that situation. I schedule those games with teams/coaches that I know personally and we both have an understanding of what I'm trying to accomplish and what they are trying to accomplish going into those games. I can't imagine a coach scheduling a game that's non district that he/she is going to get beat by 50+ unless they have a specific plan for playing that game. JMO.

As a coach I rarely post on the boards, but this topic comes up every season and I really bothers me. I coach a girls team at a high school that has 120 students total!!!! I'm in a district with Mercer, East Jessamine, and West Jessamine. Each of these schools have more kids in their freshman class than I have in my entire HS. I realize there will be times that I take a 50+ point beating. It doesn't bother me at all and I've never felt like the score has been run up. Coaches do what they feel is best for THEIR team and THEIR program.....PERIOD. It's not personal. If you don't want to get beat and sometimes beat badly play in a church league. When we take a beating, it provides me teaching opportunity, as a matter of fact I intentionally schedule at least one team per year I know will beat us 30+. On the flip side, we have blown some teams out by as much as 75 points, I don't intentionally run the score up, but when I go to the bench, those younger kids deserve and have earned the right to play and play hard so we allow them that opportunity when it arises. All you posters out there that scream about sportsmanship please stop......It's a competitive environment bad beats will happen.

As someone who has worked with coach Shope, Boyle could not have made a better hire. I used to think I worked hard, then I met coach Shope. IMO this makes Boyle baseball an instant contender in the 12th region.

I has been a pretty interesting week at the AP Chemistry Institute. It has been a pleasure meeting a fellow BGPer. I think this meeting only proves that nerds like us still love sports and in my case coach one! Good Times.

I haven't heard a peep out of Liberty. Anyone else?

I can't speak to the administration's support of coaches, but I have dropped Nicholas (girls) from my schedule because of an utter lack of professionalism demonstrated from both the administration and AD. Also, the AD told me that all new contracts with Nicholas will have to be boy/girl double headers. I have no idea how they plan on pulling that off, but I'd hate to coach a team that wasn't getting to play a JV schedule. Sparkling new facilities do not compensate for clueless administration.

There is more to this? Colleges don't look at Juniors that have a primary role as a JV player unless the kid is extremely tall and they feel they can teach her the rest. Something missing here.

Do any of you encourage your players to play AAU and/or run track in the spring? Does this hurt the softball programs at your schools?