Monday, October 01, 2012

Track coach’s firing latest shake-up in Healdsburg High sports

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Without knowing a thing about the details, it sounds disturbingly like disgruntled (often influential) parents throwing their weight around, and a school board caving. It's happened elsewhere.

JimS

Anonymous said...

This is very unfortunate, and very similar to something that happened at my school.

We had a distinguished and loved coach who had been working as head XC and track coach for a number of years at our school who ended up being fired after a XC season. The firing was shocking and unexpected. A petition ensued, signed by more than 70 members of the cross country and track team (almost EVERYONE), a school board meeting took place that sounds exactly like the one described in this article, meetings with the athletic director about it took place, many parents emailed in upset, etc.

Fast forward to the next cross country season. The school hires the absolute worst coach in the entire CCS. He ruined everyone's chance at a successful year, had the 16 minute runners run the same workouts as the 25 minute runners for the entire season (25 mpw MAX), was against any other workout especially for those involved in club teams on the weekends, was disrespectful to the athletes AND even to the parents, would not let us go to invites for no particular reason (excuses like "gas money," etc.) etc.

I could rant on and on about how terrible that season ended up being, and I would love to, but that isn't the point I'm making. (Thankfully that coach quit, moved to his 6th school coaching at in 5 years, and quit halfway through the track season there). The point is that dealing with a school administration can be tough, as unfortunately they do not take the student-athlete's best interests in mind, but rather rely on their personal agendas, whether or not they like someone and are friend's with them, etc.

Our cross country program is making a great recovery thank goodness, but when I have success, I will not credit my school. My school has lost the faith of football, cross country and track athletes alike.

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