Friday, September 16, 2011

Chapter 6: Hooray for new captains?

"There's people living now that ain't got no heart and ain't never had none." ~Joe Strummer

I had been told around the time of the "secret" meetings that the team had discussed doing something similar with the coaches for the 2011 along the lines of our rivals, Rocky Mountain. For those that don't know, that means the role of the coach would be more of a puppet and figurehead. I could take that as a personal attack if I chose to (because I'm no puppet), but I didn't spend any energy on this when told. It sure is funny how many team decisions on what to do with the coaches flowed out of those cowardly team meetings.

My sit-down with the former captains was pretty much the last time I would interact in-person with this team. The skaters had been using that skater-only email address to discuss things for weeks and the coaches were conveniently left in the dark about any and all of those things. All I was hearing from the current captains was some Flavor Flav shit: "I can't do nuttin' for ya, man; Flavor Flav's got problems of his own."

Then one day, out of nowhere, the current captains put up a new poll regarding the coaches. What did this poll ask? This:

Q1 - When should we close the SOP idea generation period & when should we elect coaches by?

Q2 - Are you willing to allow the coaches to provide feedback on the coaches SOP?

Q3 - Should the coaches be removed from the yahoo group during the official off-season?

Now if someone read that objectively, I don't know how anyone could come away from this thinking that coaches (or more accurately, a coach) weren't being scapegoated by the team. The team was going to re-write an SOP for coaches, decide whether the current, experienced coaches were allowed to give input, and then to also remove them from the yahoo group so that they didn't have to continue to use their skater-only email address. This took the politics to a new level as now the current captains are directly assaulting the coaches for the team. I use the plural version of coaches very lightly as my assistant coach was often meek and generally just along for the ride. Not sure if that was just him or if it had to do with being sold out by his home team captains back in 2009. They sent him to do a captain's job (at least on the home teams) of telling skaters they weren't going to play as much in the beginning of the bout for lack of practice attendance and when those skaters bitched at him, the home team captains sold him out and let him eat the brunt of it. Did this change how he would handle things go forward or was he always going to avoid conflict? No way of knowing.

The results of the poll were that the team "allowed" me and the assistant coach to provide input on what they decided to do with the coach SOP and that, as expected, we were removed from the Yahoo group. Using a skater-only email address is just a pain you know?

My complaints about how things were being done just fell on deaf ears with the current captains. Ditto the total disrespect for which I and the other coach (whether he wanted to see it or not) had been shown. The political machine was now completely in motion and nothing was going to stop it from getting whatever it is that it wanted. All the cowardice that had been put on full display was just in my mind apparently. My assistant coach was happy to wait and let the team do whatever it wanted to do, regardless of whether the methods were appropriate or not. I presume part of this outlook of his was because of his meek nature when it came to conflict with the team, partly because he hadn't been slandered as I had by skaters on the team, and partly because he planned to be a candidate for the head coaching gig for the 2011 season. Doesn't help your case to make waves right before a vote. Wait, did I forget to mention that all of these things had been done in advance of the team's vote on its coaches for the 2011 season? I sure did; how convenient of me! I'll tell the story however I want to. haha

The team had successfully created a box of injustice for me to live in until their witch hunt could be successfully concluded. After years of having the team's back, the team was now showing me how much they had mine.

No comments:

Post a Comment