Bulldog_Chem

Also out of all the coaches you named did any of them go on to coach anywhere else with boys basketball? Edwards went on to coach the girls at Boyle but none of the others got a head job anywhere else and most aren't even coaching. Seems like if they were such great coaches another school would have swooped them up.

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.

Britt said in the paper he didn't want to resign! It wasn't his choice to stay on another year. The administration chose to let him go. It wasn't that he chose to resign over dealing with parents. Mercer has some positive things going on and getting on here bad mouthing the community will not help with the next hire. If you truly care about the program and the future please get the facts straight as to why this coach isn't coming back next year.

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.

Correct...also, they were parent issues. Can't say those issues but there were some there. As you said...bad combination.

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.

Thanks. And tenure entails being more difficult to remove? I assume that means a teacher could be fired for any reason prior to tenure, then after tenure it must be with cause or something to that effect? I know it's something that gets debated constantly, but I'm curious exactly what the mechanisms are.

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.

This morning at UofL, during my AP Chemistry conference, I realized that another person in the room was a BGP member that I had corresponded with here before. I was pleased to have the opportunity (and four more days of that opportunity).

 

Where have you had the pleasure (or displeasure) of meeting other BGPers, to your surprise?

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 don't think it matters who coaches at NC (boys or girls) because administration doesn't support the coaches or the programs. Always going to have a high turnover in coaches there!

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?

I'd like to see them adopt your handle and go to a Spread Offense with the freshman. He's got an arm and they have more than enough capable receivers.

 

 

Mercer has had way too many injuries this year. Way too many. Elijah Mayes also didn't play either.

The freshman QB you are referring too is Long, correct?

I find it hard to play juniors on my JV team unless I know they will contribute to the varsity team as a senior. It's competitive basketball. If the kid just wants to play there are plenty of rec leagues out there. Otherwise hand the kid a clipboard and let him keep stats.

Considering the atmosphere of parents and administrators in Mercer County I don't think Lou Holtz could win there.

Science was never my strong suit so I must ask. Are there controversial issues in chemistry and physics?

Carbon dating in chemistry. Many people debate it because it is the technique used to date the age of the earth to 4.6 billion years.

Physics would be formation of the universe aka big bang theory. This is sometimes taught under earth/space science.

I find it interesting that some of the people who might tend to call Richard Mapplethorpe exhibits (of peeing on the Christ and pictures of fists up another's rear end) "art that should be displayed," excoriate a high school documentary film about the Klan. I'm also interested to see whether our teacher brethren on here support the idea of being required to run content by the Principal before being able to teach a subject. Who gets to draw the "line" Clyde speaks of? Drama teachers putting on productions about homosexuality? How does a lesson plan about Nazi activity during the Holocaust shock the conscience any less than a play about Nazi activity during the Holocaust where students where Nazi uniforms with schwastika's? How does a documentary film about the Klan with students wearing Klan uniforms shock the conscience any less than a lesson plan about the Klan with photographs of the uniforms in a book?

 

It seems to me there are 2 elements here: 1) surprise and 2) content. Element one could have been easily dealt with. Element two could not have been cured no matter how much advance notice was given. If we are going to censor items offensive to one student, we need to censor items offensive to any student.

I personally could not teach under a principal that required me to clear content before teaching. Here's the rational, my current principal taught 4th grade reading before becoming an administrator. Now she is a phenomenal leader and school administrator, but in what way is she qualified to make decisions about advanced chemistry and physics content (my subject areas)? With all do respect, that is a decision that the school pays me to make.

With that said, this teacher is actually using a very strong teaching method to teach her students. It is not uncommon for teachers in any subject area to require students to make a movie or preform a skit. Hearsay hit the nail on the head, the teacher could have limited surprise but the content here is the problem. Why are we demonizing a teacher that was attempting to have students understand a period of time that otherwise they could have just read about.

Are you going to treat me the same way for teaching kids the theory of evolution, geologic time (the earth is 4.6 billion years old), the big bang theory? All are areas of controversial content, but still need to be taught just like a history teacher must cover civil rights and that time period.

Cougar Town.

I too will submit my man card at the door.

She is a great player and I know her well. BUT yeah to be elite you have to go to elite programs IMO. If a kid signs in football with UK then IMO he is really good, but when he signs with FLA he is elite IMO. There are elite schools and they dont just take anybody, but if good enough they will try like heck to get them and at least offer, I wish her the best of luck adn hope she shows ELITE schools why she was a mistake to pass on. But IMO she has done or hasnt done something to show them why she is elite. yeah she is tall, runs well, dribbles good for a big girl, good shot blocker. Now she will get to show other girls in the country with same height and skills if she is good enough. Not like next year when she is tallest on floor. Kind of like the big girl fom Jackson Co, she dominated in HS and was a decent player at UK. Not elite or she would have been at UT or UCONN. But it is my opinion.

This kid still has another year of high school ball to show the "elite" programs that they need to recruit her. IMO Ms. Hammond is the best post player in the state as a jr.

Also ANY offer to a D-1 school would make any player an elite player in my book. D-1 scholarships are incredibly hard to get and only elite players get the opportunity.

Burke's Bakery in Danville.

There was obviously a liberal in office from 2001-2009.

You have me there. Both parties are terrible financial managers. :isurrender:

10.) How about spend tax payer money on government programs that we don't need and can't afford.

Wait.....That one may not be a generalization.