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Originally posted by Hawks Coach
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Originally posted by CYO Butch
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The league in question (Montgomery County, MD, Department of Recreation) has a set of very explict guidelines for coach and parental behavior, playing time, etc.
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My old league! This is where I got my start, CYOB. Where do you play, and who runs your league? Who made this call (if you don't mind saying)? I know a lot of the folks at Rec and they are good people. We worked on some coach and league issues back a few years.
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I don't rembember who the key people were in the rec league back then. I was coaching the Clarksburg ES girls, and the "sweep" was used against us in the second game of the season. One girl was hurt (only minor, but did not go back in the game), and a number of the others got bumps and bruises well in excess of anything from any other team all season. It was also our only game when we were shooting foul shots because of more than 10 fouls on the other team, and this game it was BOTH halves. I almost had to verbally restrain one of my player's dad who was so furious at the other coach I was afraid a fight was going to break out.
I talked to the officials at half-time about it, but maybe they were trained by MTD
, since they said they couldn't do anything except when there was contact. They also said, however, that they would address the issue at their weekly meeting with the rec department. It was the following week that the ruling came out. I was tremendously impressed by the rec department AND the officials they used, even when they were young ones. Everybody, except that one coach, seemed to understand why everybody was there. As they used to say "Rule 1, This is for the kids; Rule 2, Treat everybody with respect; Rule 3 ...; Rule 10, if you can't figure it out, see Rule 1."
I've also worked with the Gaithersburg City rec department, and they too are a pretty great group. In their league, the officials are all (or used to be 100 years ago) employees of the rec department, and while they weren't always the best at that job, they incorpated teaching into their officating role and they were a joy to be around for the young teams.
The DC area has plenty of high power teams, and for those kids for whom intense competition is important they (or should I say their parents, at least for the very young ones) have plenty of choices. Somehow, I doubt that any of them have to worry about the Green Bay Sweep. The last I checked, this was still not anybody's idea of teaching basketball (well, except maybe in NW Ohio
)
btw, MTD, I vacation on Middle Bass Island in a cottage my grandfather built in the 1920's, and I LOVE NW Ohio!