Editorial

Last week was one of those weeks. You know, the kind where you can’t do anything right. Not only did we not get all of our Christmas cards written, we also didn’t finish our Christmas shopping or baking or cleaning.

And that’s not all. We also managed to spout off in these pages about a situation that we could have easily resolved by picking up the phone and making a simple call. Instead, we chose to criticize coaching decisions as part of an article on last week’s basketball games (not the proper place for editorializing in any case).

Our apologies to the coaches of the boys’ basketball team for our comments in last week’s article. Once the situation was explained by a member of the coaching staff, it made perfect sense to us that not everyone on the bench gets to play in the varsity game. And a big nod of appreciation to Larry Moffet for explaining it all in a calm and constructive manner.

For the benefit of our readers and those who might also have wondered why recent games were allowed to proceed as they did, here is a synopsis of what we learned:

The length of the football season meant that several boys who play both football and basketball were not able to practice the winter sport while they were still preparing for playoff games in the fall sport. This situation also delayed the start of the basketball season, as the first few games had to be postponed to a later date.

Once basketball play began, there were sometimes as many as three games per week, so the boys were playing often enough that the coaches did not want to wear them out with additional practices. The decision was made to consider the games themselves as an opportunity to practice skills, to try out different strategies for offense and defense and so forth. The coaches were not paying as much attention to the score as they were to the execution of the game.

There are also junior varsity games to be considered. The boys playing crossover (on both the varsity and JV) were getting two or three quarters of play in the JV games, Moffet explained. The varsity boys needed to be playing for at least that much time, or more, to keep their own skills sharp.

So, as we said, it all made sense, and we appreciate the fact that it was all explained to us with courtesy and without rancor.

As always, we appreciate the feedback.

The Editor