Haters
April 18, 2008 @ 11:24 a.m. by Joannaby joanna
That may not be the best title for this blog, but I couldn’t come up with anything better. I’ve taken some heat in a previous post on the Maize and Recruiting post about regulating what is said online. This is in regards to a poster saying two City League coaches recruit.
I really prefer not to regulate here. I would say the majority of posters are adults, most are fans, parents or coaches. I would say that the majority of posters are intelligent and rational and logical in their posts. Of course there are lines, I just don’t think they’ve been crossed yet.
The latest issue was directed at Northwest’s Weston Schartz and Travis Stockam. I’m not taking down the post for two reasons — I think Travis had outstanding responses to it and anyone who doesn’t feel good after reading his posts is crazy. He’s obviously dedicated and I give him major props for that.
Now, his wife posted and said that she can’t believe I am allowing people to write such vitriol about her husband. I understand her position. I do. It stinks to hear someone say negative — and false — comments about the person you love, especially when you see them putting a whole lot of unpaid energy toward that job. But I also leave this up because I think recruiting comments are constantly made verbally. It rarely happens here because the fact is, you need to back up your comment or you’ll get hit hard. I haven’t seen anyone come out in support of that poster.
That poster hasn’t backed up the comment. Hasn’t pointed out specific areas that it happened and has no proof. Proving recruiting is extremely difficult. Trust me, here at the Eagle we’ve thought of how can we prove that recruiting is going on. We’ve tried to figure out ways to follow it and see it happen, but unless I’m camping out at a 7th graders house every night for two years, I don’t know how to make it work. If you have an idea, my e-mail is jchadwick@wichitaeagle.com.
I guess my point is, this is a blog where people can make their comments, but I tend to ignore those recruiting ones. As I said, the comments are rarely made and I usually laugh because any program that is successful is accused of recruiting. If you noticed, Weston Schartz doesn’t respond to such comments — he and I have had many conversations about it and it gets to a point that you just ignore it.
My suggestion? Prove that it’s happening. I’ll write a story if you can show me how to prove it. No one should be recruiting. No one. But do kids want to play for specific coaches? Of course they do. I’ve heard so often that black basketball athletes choose to go to East and Southeast because they want to play for a black coach. Remember Kellen Winslow’s son? Kellen wanted his son to go and play for a black college football coach. His son chose not to. I digress, however. When a program wins, players tend to go to those schools. It’s not that hard to do, really, as long as they do it before they go to high school. Remember West High? That wrestling program drew kids to that school, so did its football program. Did they recruit? I never saw proof, but I know I had a nephew who was a wrestler and where did he want to wrestle? At West.
As I said earlier, I understand the coach’s wife. But I think there is some great dialogue going on here. And after Travis’ impassioned posts, I doubt we’ll see more of the haters.
April 18th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
It’s great dialogue when someone with no evidence accuses a coach of violating rules and ethical standards, and the coach then has to defend his honor? To say that “recruiting comments are constantly made verbally” as some sort of justification for allowing such things to appear in a public forum here, is a thin excuse. It is indeed impossible (and inappropriate) to control anything someone might say orally in a conversation where a couple of other people might be listening. But if you provide a forum for people to make a potentially libelous statement, you need to take some responsibility for it. I do not know either of the coaches involved. I do know that they probably each earn about $2.47 per hour on their supplemental contracts for the time they put in trying to develop character and athletic talent, and they don’t need to have cruel potshots taken at them in a forum that anyone can read.
I am imagining the Eagle presses all members of its staff to get controversial stuff out to increase the number of website hits generated. But when the commercial interests of the Eagle go against the reputations of fine educators, I draw the line at that. It’s wrong.
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May 1st, 2008 at 6:37 am
Both of these coaches are winners. I bet if they had losing records nobody would say a thing. I am a Northwest parent and you people can post anything you want. Don’t be a hater because somebody is successful. Give them credit. If you break it down, coaches at this level do not get paid enough money. They put in hours and put in hours. They do it for the love of the game. I do not appreciate people posting who have no proof of what they are talking about. To Coach Stockam and Coach Schartz we at NW love you two. IKeep winning. Let those losers post what they will. GO NORTHWEST!!!!!!!
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