With Regard to "The Incident"

beyond that it does bring up an interesting dilemma for college bball coaches in light of what has happened in the football world. Basketball coaches are much more visible and watching the K-State, Mizzou game and seeing plenty of Bill Self over the years you see some fired up coaches in basketball from time to time and what they yell and say is plain as day to fans near the action and pretty easy to decipher for the casual lip reader. It makes you wonder when a player or university might take advantage of that to gain some leverage against a coach.

Who knows, I’m probably over thinking it…my overall point was Frank Martin handled it well but it begs the question as to what happens when someone doesn’t.

On the one hand, if what Martin did was wrong, it’s my sense that even yelling at a player is wrong. If we’re going to insist on wholly professional conduct from coaches, then we have to insist that players be treated in exactly the same fashion that I should expect to be treated by a manager in the workplace.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things which are deemed acceptable in the sporting world — hell, sometimes even almost mandatory to an extent — which would be absolutely inappropriate in an office. Can you imagine your boss patting you on the ass? Can you imagine your boss gripping you by the shoulders and giving you a squeeze while giving you a pep talk? Hell, can you imagine your boss calling you out in front of all your co-workers and telling you you’re failing and that you need to go sit and watch everyone else work? Or telling you to go run stairs as punishment for being late?

And let’s be honest with ourselves here: how many times do you think a coach does something almost exactly similar to what Frank did and the kid doesn’t even think anything of it, nor does anyone observing? Hell, when I was playing sports as a kid I got my helmet smacked a couple of times a day. Didn’t hurt, and more importantly the coach wasn’t trying to hurt me and even more to the point there was no way in hell he could have hurt me; he was getting my attention, so why should I complain?

I mean, it’s one thing to choke a kid or lock him in a closet or verbally humiliate him just to make him feel like crap. It’s another entirely to grab him by the shoulder pads or swat him on the arm or give him a quick rap on the side of his helmet. So in that respect, I’ve always felt that either we need to decide that we must treat sports no differently than accounting or software development and expect exactly the sort of professional interaction between player and coach that we would from manager and employee, or we need to realize that some level of physicality is actually an inherent part of sports and stop treating these guys (most of whom could probably whip their coach’s ass if they threw down in a parking lot, I might add) like they’re china dolls.

( Also, I’m very skeptical of the notion that the recent spate of accusations wasn’t in Frank’s mind when he apologized — not suggesting his apology was in any way insincere, just that the attention to the matter IS, in fact, making coaches more aware of what they’re doing, which isn’t a bad thing at all regardless of how serious you think the problem actually is.)

And having said all that, I wonder if Bill’s got a spot on his staff for Leavitt, who I am convinced is similarly guilty of having offended the sensibilities of a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Bring on the Aggies!

I thought of it as a non-issue as well.

…I saw what happened and almost posted a joking “OHMYGOD FRANK MARTIN JUST PUNCHED A PLAYER” joke on the RMN live thread…but it was such an innocuous thing that I didn’t even think making a comment about it was worth it, especially since nobody else felt the need to comment about it either. And I think that’s my whole viewpoint on it: a ton of us saw it happen live, and barely anybody even noticed. It’s probably good that Martin addressed it immediately, because I’m sure somebody was going to comment on it, but it just wasn’t even remotely a big deal. He was trying to get Merriewether’s attention during a timeout…that’s all it was to me. Obviously you wouldn’t do that to a co-worker in a cubicle (at least, not at most jobs), but…yeah. No big deal.

but this could be spun as a positive for us. One thing I’ve been thinking about is that maybe it’ll scare other programs from pursuing Frank for some time. We have to admit that if a high profile program from along the East coast wants to hire Frank, it’d be hard for him to turn it down. Maybe this ‘incident’ will keep them at bay for a while.

what happened Saturday with Frank and Chris was not hitting (or any similar word implying violence/malice).

http://ncaabasketball.fanhouse.com/2010/01/11/ksus-martin-says-climate-has-changed-for-college-coaches/ (link from the “Fanhouse” section on the edge of this page)

I feel this to be a very accurate description of the ‘incident’, from the above link:
“During a timeout with 1:17 remaining and KSU trailing 65-63, the colorful Martin began screaming at Merriewether and then flicked the back of his hand at the player and ended up touching his arm.”

I feel Frank and all other KSU-related parties are handling this the proper way – apologize and move on. Not really a big deal.

He was definitely flicking his hands in the general direction of Merriewether because he was not giving the due attention to his coach during the time out (as Bill from Rock M mentioned). That attention was needed because of Merriewether’s costly turnover on the game’s previous play and the planning required for the last 1:17. I’d say the flick was not due to the play/turnover in the game, but the inattentiveness.

Personally, I like Frank’s fiery and emotional style and his “realness” with players and hope he continues to control/channel it rather than losing it (I fear his coaching-edge would go with it).