You go ahead and figure out which one is me. But also, if you can, figure out why I am pissed I got no playing time that year. Perhaps "no playing time" is a stretch; I probably played a total of twenty minutes during our whole season: garbage time during our first few losses. After about the eighth or ninth game, I never saw the court again. And it wasn't just me; about four other guys were in the same boat. It became almost comical. We would race after time-outs to make sure we got our favorite seat on the bench. And I am pretty sure we all got worse as basketball players during the course of the season. Why was it this way? Simple.
Our coach sucked.
For the purposes of this blog we will call him Kreg Gimball. Anyway, Coach Gimball was in his first year as head basketball coach at Caldwell High. Apparently winning the conference title and tournament when you are the smallest school in the conference isn't good enough to keep your job, because that's what the previous coach had accomplished in his last year. Admittedly, the previous coach did have some decent talent to work with: Danny was 6'8" and went and played basketball at Boise State; Mac was a good athlete who played football at BSU. Even made honorable mention at linebacker for BSU's all-time team: http://boisestate.scout.com/2/421948.html.
[I am not going to take the time right now to detail how I hooked up with Mac's girlfriend Bev during my junior year. Ah, the cold weekday nights and Saturdays parked out at Lake Lowell listening to Depeche Mode and The B52s in her yellow Honda Civic. And not just listening to music. We multi-tasked. Mmmm, the late nights at her house: she would make faces while talking on the phone with him while she carried on her own conversation with me. I saw it as all as quite an accomplishment. Bev was older than me and I totally dug her. She was, you know, a real clean cheese. But I said I wasn't going in to that part.]
So Coach Gimball came in to take over a program bereft of talent (and height, as you see. There was about three inches difference in height from the shortest guy on our team to the tallest. "Which one of you six-footers wants to play post?") But instead of constantly running all eleven guys in and out of the game--you know to wear the other team out with our quickness and conditioning--he played the same five guys the whole game every game. Even after he figured out our team sucked. We only won a handful of games and got killed in many others. But even then he left the same guys in. We could all see them totally spent and nearly delirious during every time-out, but I guess he couldn't.
My proudest moment as a Coug came when we were shut out in the third quarter by Bonneville. Yes, our team went an entire eight minute quarter without scoring a point. And still Coach followed his plan. Of course I am bitter about it. I look at it this way: how much better were the guys playing than the ones on the bench? We are talking about a high school basketball team in Caldwell, Idaho for crap sake! Maybe he was afraid his team would go 3 and 20 instead of 5 and 18.
So when I went to college and found I had decent game, it came as a surprise: my senior year in high school had consumed all my confidence. And for that I thank Coach Gimball.
Our coach sucked.
For the purposes of this blog we will call him Kreg Gimball. Anyway, Coach Gimball was in his first year as head basketball coach at Caldwell High. Apparently winning the conference title and tournament when you are the smallest school in the conference isn't good enough to keep your job, because that's what the previous coach had accomplished in his last year. Admittedly, the previous coach did have some decent talent to work with: Danny was 6'8" and went and played basketball at Boise State; Mac was a good athlete who played football at BSU. Even made honorable mention at linebacker for BSU's all-time team: http://boisestate.scout.com/2/421948.html.
[I am not going to take the time right now to detail how I hooked up with Mac's girlfriend Bev during my junior year. Ah, the cold weekday nights and Saturdays parked out at Lake Lowell listening to Depeche Mode and The B52s in her yellow Honda Civic. And not just listening to music. We multi-tasked. Mmmm, the late nights at her house: she would make faces while talking on the phone with him while she carried on her own conversation with me. I saw it as all as quite an accomplishment. Bev was older than me and I totally dug her. She was, you know, a real clean cheese. But I said I wasn't going in to that part.]
So Coach Gimball came in to take over a program bereft of talent (and height, as you see. There was about three inches difference in height from the shortest guy on our team to the tallest. "Which one of you six-footers wants to play post?") But instead of constantly running all eleven guys in and out of the game--you know to wear the other team out with our quickness and conditioning--he played the same five guys the whole game every game. Even after he figured out our team sucked. We only won a handful of games and got killed in many others. But even then he left the same guys in. We could all see them totally spent and nearly delirious during every time-out, but I guess he couldn't.My proudest moment as a Coug came when we were shut out in the third quarter by Bonneville. Yes, our team went an entire eight minute quarter without scoring a point. And still Coach followed his plan. Of course I am bitter about it. I look at it this way: how much better were the guys playing than the ones on the bench? We are talking about a high school basketball team in Caldwell, Idaho for crap sake! Maybe he was afraid his team would go 3 and 20 instead of 5 and 18.
So when I went to college and found I had decent game, it came as a surprise: my senior year in high school had consumed all my confidence. And for that I thank Coach Gimball.
2 comments:
Yes he is but his nickname was "Storm Cloud" because whenever he hit the court it would rain.
Clever name changes but the car gave it away!
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