OT: HS Coach Suspended for Doing the Right Thing
A Florida HS football head coach is suspended and being reprimanded for taking in a homeless kid and allowing him to play for his HS football team. I don't know about you guys, but this is very disheartening to me. The guy seems to be doing the right thing by helping a kid in need out, and then is punished for it.
What do you guys think?
October 1st, 2010 at 9:34 AM ^
I wish every coach who complained about this would adopt a family or child who is in need
October 1st, 2010 at 10:12 AM ^
Case in point: Shawn Conway. Not quite homeless, but close, frankly.
His coach is now his guardian.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:35 AM ^
It seems like a gray area that's technically covered by the rules, but not really. Hopefully they can judge the case on its own merits, but if he "gets away with it" (it, in this case, is clearly not a bad thing) it could open a loophole for other cases that are less innocent in nature.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:42 AM ^
That's a slippery slope argument. This is why situations are supposed to be viewed in a case-by-case basis. I'm not saying that people won't cry about it, but honestly, according to logic, it's an invalid premis.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:58 AM ^
No, slippery-slope arguments aren't logical fallacies. It's really only natural to assume that some shady character somewhere will find a way to violate the spirit of a rule that allows a coach to take in a homeless player. That doesn't make it a good reason not to let the coach off the hook in this case, but you can't just say "that's a slippery-slope argument" and assume you've invalidated it.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:29 AM ^
... that never happens.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:43 AM ^
This picture seriously makes me lol every time I see it. Love it.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:09 AM ^
Right, that's why I said hopefully they can judge this situation on its own merits. People and organizations use precedent to make judgements all the time, and if this precedent is set that may open the door for some pretty shady stuff if they're not careful.
I agree with you, but I think this might be something they're worried about.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:49 AM ^
The difference in this case would have to be that the student is homeless. I.E. - No parent, legal guardian or relative that could be made a legal guardian has a residence. That's not going to come up too often.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:47 AM ^
"Hmmm... this looks really, really bad. Lets drag it out and make sure it goes public rather than issuing a summary exception in the case of homeless students."
What kind of genius people run their PR department?
October 1st, 2010 at 9:50 AM ^
I'm not completely familiar with the Conway situation, but isn't it similar to this? Are the rules in Michigan that much different from Florida? Perhaps b/c he already went to the school it wasn't a big issue to just move in?
EDIT: to clarify I'm not looking for details into the story of the kids, more why one is allowed with respect to the rules and one isn't.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:54 AM ^
Seeing stuff like this makes me sick. Shows we live in a right is wrong, wrong is right society.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:56 AM ^
Berwick High School was a football factory in the 80's and early 90's located in nowhere PA. There were a few reasons that Berwick was able to field very good teams full of talent, not the least of which was that the coach was able to find jobs for players' parents at the nearby power plant.
The most blatant case of abuse that I recall was Gus Felder, who eventually attended PSU. I'm going strictly from memory, so google away and I won't be upset if I'm not 100% correct.
Gus's mother lived in Philadelphia which was a fertile recruiting ground for the Berwick program. A plan was hatched to allow Gus to live in Berwick and be taken in/adopted by a foster family there. All went well until the local newspaper ran a story on the kid and made mention that the adopted/foster father had done some time for murder or manslaughter.
Nothing came of it, but that seemed to be the end of Berwick HS as a national powerhouse once daylight was shined on their program. I never begrudged Gus because he seemed like a genuinely good kid who was using the system to make his life better just as much as the system was using him.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:22 AM ^
Lets say there is a HS coach out there who is recruiting kids
what is the worst case scenario?
Kids are monitored and taken care of and give a good educaiton which they otherwise would not have got
FWIW I believe that the private schools/catholic schools already do this, but its called scholarships
October 1st, 2010 at 2:31 PM ^
That would be the best-case scenario.
The worst-case scenario is that the schools commit academic fraud to make sure the kid (who may well be behind academically) stays eligible, just so they can gain an illicit advantage on the playing field. BTW, don't assume that public schools are somehow on the up-and-up regarding this stuff.
October 1st, 2010 at 3:09 PM ^
don't turn into mlive and start this whole "Catholic schools recruit" thing. It's not true. Let's just not go there.
October 1st, 2010 at 9:59 AM ^
This makes me really angry. This football coach is also a social studies teacher. If this story was just about a social studies teacher taking in a homeless kid and helping him enroll in the high school, he'd be a hero. Now, he's forfeiting part of the stipend he makes for coaching the football team and suspended from doing something he loves. As a society, we should probably try to encourage behavior like this, instead we find a way to follow the letter of certain rules without really respecting what the purpose of the rule was in the first place. If there's a rash of homeless high school kids being taken off the street by coaches that end up graduating, and they also end up playing football, is this suddenly a bad thing? Kudos to the coach. Any other coach who complained about this should be ashamed of themselves, along with the FHSAA.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:07 AM ^
But I think there was once an episode of The Next Generation, or something, wherein the crew traveled to a world where the laws were ridiculously complex and EVERYBODY was a Lawyer.
I feel like that's the direction we're heading.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:19 AM ^
I think it was C-SPAN.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:48 AM ^
Speaking as a lawyer, I would like to take offense to your last statement but I really cannot . . .
Its too bad the high school football rules bit this coach in the a-- in this case. However, I think we can all agree that there is clearly potential for abuse of a rule that allows football coaches to take in "homeless" kids and have them play on their team. For example, how long does the kid need to be "homeless" and what does "homeless" mean for it to be appropriate? Judging these kind of things on a case-by-case basis is not only unrealisting from a logistical standpoint, it also creates the potential for crazy rulings.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:28 AM ^
This is a tough break for the coach and the kid, but we have to be honest that the coach should have know this was coming.
If you read the article, the district said they have a social services process for these situations and that school employees should not be taking in students without the administration being involved.
Now the social services process probably sucks (foster care and a colonoscopy from some social workers or whatnot), but that's the process and you don't just get to go around it if you feel like it.
This is not the 50's...if he's head coach of a public school program, he should know what the recruiting rules are, and what social services are available for kids. Moreover, he should understand that coaches bringing kids into their homes, giving them meals/rides/help with homework/whatever, is all going to be looked at very carefully as a conflict of interest. Is that sad? Yeah, but cheaters have made it so we have to be suspicious of charity in big-time sports.
There's really no way for him to deflect the question "did you bring him into your home because you banked on his football talent?" We'll never really know, but the plausibility is enough to create doubt.
Like Mike Leach sending Adam James to the shed, was it "wrong?" Not really. Was it a dumb move by someone who should have a better sense of politics? Yeah.
October 1st, 2010 at 11:25 AM ^
in situations like these are a joke.
"Alright, son. We're gonna get you set up in a horrible, dirty, underfunded and crime ridden boys home. But before we can do that, we have to put you up for a few days at the local homeless shelter. You're lucky you're male! You'll only be press ganged into being a coke mule instead of raped AND press ganged into being a coke mule."
October 1st, 2010 at 12:05 PM ^
makes me sick to my stomach and makes my heart hurt. Cudos to that coach. I wish more people were about respecting your fellow man like that guy is. Good luck to both of them!
October 1st, 2010 at 12:36 PM ^
FHSAA needs to watch "The Blind Side"
This sounds an awful lot like the Michael Oher story.
October 1st, 2010 at 2:35 PM ^
It sounds to me like this whole mess could have been avoided if the coach had just made sure to go through all the proper legal channels to get the kid legal residency (which is what Conway's coach did). He basically ignored all that and made sure the kid got on the football field ASAP.
October 1st, 2010 at 3:53 PM ^
Did we all not get mad for Archie taking in Gholston?
October 1st, 2010 at 6:00 PM ^
The FHSAA is very student and coach-unfriendly. They often make decisions to penalize coaches, schools, and players that violate the spirit of the rules they cite as "justification." To me, over the last ten years, they have sounded a lot more like petty administrators who hate sports than people who have any concern for the welfare of the student-athlete.