Letters to the Editor
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I call bullshit
So, some high muckty-muck commentator says that a coach smacking a player is no big deal? Sorry, but as an athlete (female) who was smacked around by both male AND female coaches, I say it's NEVER appropriate to lay a hand on a kid. NEVER. If a coach can't make him- or herself understood with words and tone and facial expression, that coach needs anger management therapy AND needs a break from coaching. Maybe a permanent one.
Enough already from these bloated and arrogant sports programs. Dumbing down appropriate and civilized coach behavior has to stop. And quit dumbing down appropriate and civilized player behavior while you're at it, for the love of God.
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It's All of A Piece
If it's ok to execute somone then it's ok to brutalize prisoners and it's ok harrass employees and it's ok for coaches to smack around their charges. This is, really, how fascism takes root culturally. Authority-sanctioned brutality and sadism trickles all the way down to the grassroots.
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Winning games, I agree, to a point - Rob Anderson, relax
I agree that it's wrong to ever touch a kid like that. But the thing is, this has nothing to do with kids. The player is an adult and is free to play or not to play. If he chooses to play with Bob Knight, he chooses to be treated badly. In a free society, adults get to make bad choices.
Rob,
Fifty years ago and before, athletes and prisoners were treated much worse than they are today (I'm not excusing anything the Bush administration has done, btw, just stating facts). There was no descent into fascism, indeed, the last fifty years have seen consistent growth in freedom and prosperity in this country.
That's not to say that the Bush administration wouldn't love for us to have less freedom, only that it has less than absolutely nothing to do with the way Bob Knight treats his players.