"Top pressure sport? Has to be basketball" from the March 30, 1971 Door County Advocate
JIM ROBERTSON
JIM ROBERTSON
Top pressure sport? Has to be basketball
It was during the 1971 state basketball tournament in Madison that John Roberts, executive director of the WIAA, asked the news media for help in supporting the high school coaching profession.
Roberts pointed out how the high school coach is having tougher times and "some good coaches are leaving coaching before they ought to."
"The boys now question rules and authority," Roberts continued. "Their parents — some of them — even do. And now sometimes even the courts get into it."
Roberts noted that "all of this is producing a terrible hardship on the coaches, who have sound philosophies in educating boys.
Boys who go out for athletics must be prepared to make some personal sacrifices. That's what sports is all about. The athlete must respect authority. Coaches must insist that it is a privilege to participate — and it has responsibilities."
Roberts talked to visiting sports writers and broadcasters just before the state tournament and his remarks reflected a statewide problem that is more prevalent during basketball than any other sports season.
Why basketball?
Well, for one thing basketball is one of the easiest games to watch and to become a bleacher expert at. All there is to the game, or seemingly so, is to put the ball through the hoop.
Another thing is that the fans are so close to the action. The floor is a nearby stage and fans find it easy to become personally involved in the nearby struggle between two teams of half-clad boys.
Take football by contrast. Not that football coaches are immune to pressure, but football is a harder game to understand, the fans are well separated from the action and the boys are well disguised by their uniforms. Football is the one game where unless you've got the numbers memorized, you can't tell the players without a program.
And since basketball is an easy game to watch, there's a popular misconception that it's an easy game to play. Thus it's easy for a mother to wonder why her son isn't playing where in football she might not even let him go out and if he does to hope he doesn't get in the game so he won't get hurt.
Basketball and football are alike in regards to the coach being the sole judge as to who plays but think how much easier for a wrestling or track coach who can simply have a wrestle-off or run-off to determine his players.
And then remember how only five boys can play at one time in basketball. Other sports, football especially with its offensive, defensive and special teams, offer a lot more opportunities for boys to get into the game.
But being as close to the action as he is, the average fan can't help but take up bleacher quarterbacking a lot faster in basketball than any other sport. A baseball coach will say, "I can't go up there and swing for the guy" but a basketball coach is supposed to be able to steer the ball through the hoop. And that's really all the game is about.
The basketball season is also the longest of any high school sport and comes at a time when the average sports fan has the least to think about. As long as the Packers are playing, basketball isn't so important.
Then there's the tournament. It has its good side but it also has its bad side. There's two seasons in basketball, the conference season and the tournament. The Milwaukee Bucks won a divisional championship with the second best record in NBA history but who will remember that if they lose the playoffs?
Except for baseball, basketball provides the only real team tournament ( we still maintain wrestling and track are basically individual sports ) and how many people really care what a high school does in baseball anyway?
But when fans get caught up in "March Madness" the tournament becomes the measure of the whole season, even if two dozen teams better than the state champion are lost along the way.
And isn't it ridiculous to put such emphasis on the tournament when you stop and think that every high school basketball team in the state of Wisconsin with the exception of the three that finish first, third and consolation end the season with a loss? Maybe that's the basic problem. It's hard to wind up with a loss, harder yet for a champion.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive