on rating losses

[spellingbee]

Many have been dismayed and disapointed by the infamous "I don't rank losses" quote by CCG. It rears it's head in various thread throughout the board.

As a former high school asst. coach (I'm sure there are other coaches on this board) I offer my opinion:

This is a good thing. A coach who will rate losses is a coach who will prioritize games. When a coach start looking ahead on the schedule, then he is headed for trouble. EVERY loss is troubling to a coach. He has toiled and labored physically and emotionally. He has (contrary to what some believe) put forth his best effort to ready the team for battle. When it fails, it hurts bad.

This board would implode if, after a loss to the likes of vandy or even awburn if, at his post-game interview, CCG said "sure it was a tough loss, but at least it wasn't against a conference team or especially georgia; I can accept these kinds of losses if we can win the important ones." or "I'm not really going to let it bother me because it not as bad as losing to some other teams--especially georgia."

There are some who say they would rather have a 1-11 season and beat uga than a 11-1 season with a loss to uga. Any coach worth the whistle he blows would scoff at this notion.

That being said, coaches understand the importance of a teams hated rival(s.) I would say the perspective is a bit different, but they know. They understand the big games, but those games are "in focus" all year and "the focus" the week of the game.

Finally, let me say that dealing with a loss is harder for a fan than for a coach. A fan has a week to walk around in a daze and wallow in the mire of sorrow and emotions. A coach has to put on his game face, suppress those emotions, and show the team that they can win again. He knows better than anyone what happened in the loss, what need to be worked on, where the failures were. But instead of having the "luxury" of talking about the negatives, he has to present the negatives, correct the negatives, and produce positives. That leaves little time for dwelling on the loss and, ergo, the state of the program as a whole and whether or not, by the year 2010, if, because of academic restrictions, if GT will be playing NAIA ball. That is the fans job.

I'm not (I forget the "board-correct" term) slamming fans for being fans, but I am trying to give some perspective into losses and the way a coach handles them. Let them coach, let us cheer and vent and support. Go Jackets.

 

[Lionel Hutz]

Thanks for a coach's perspective.

For some posters on here, I think Chan could do everything else right over his tenure at GT and still he would be disliked by them.

I am not completely sold on Chan, but I did see some positive things as well as some negative things last season. I want to give him my full support and see what he can do.

My brother-in-law is a HS assistant coach and he has great respect for Chan and says he is going to be a great coach for GT. I keep pressing him and he seems confident that Chan will be great. He says Chan really knows his X's and O's (He supposedly has heard Chan speak at a coaching clinic or something that my bro attended). I just have to believe Chan can do the job. Coaching at Tech is different than coaching the Cowboys or coaching at a lower level of college football but ultimately I believe that Chan can get the job done. I have my doubts just like everyone else but I am going to give him a shot.

The greater issue for me is The Hill and GT admiting students that can get into 95% of other D-1 programs. If we cannot admit students who are borderline but can get into 95% of other D-1 schools then we are sunk IMO. I think we should make sure they have passing scores, make sure they understand the difficulty of Tech academics, make sure they are good, quality young men, and then admit them if they really want to come to Tech. I don't know whether The Hill is turning away recruits, but, if so, Chan, Dodd, Fridge, Lombardi, etc., couldn't win consistently at Tech. We are not Stanford, we do not have the diversity of curriculum that Stanford does. Sorry for the rant.

Again, thanks for a coach's perspective.