1. Archmere and St. Thomas
More to rejoin/join the Catholic Conference.
2. I’d like to see a
Stormin’ Norman’s-like summer league – at least in the high school girls
division – return to the Wilmington area. And I’d like it to return
without a community service component. Nothing against community
service. Just think that that’s the job of families and churches, not
basketball.
3. A return to AT LEAST a
22 game regular season.
4. An end to the running
clock Mercy Rule.
5. Coaches and Athletic
Directors making it a priority to provide full and accurate information
with regard to their 1,000 point scorers.
6. Coaches and Athletic
Directors becoming more active in retiring player jersey numbers.
7. Having high school
coaches selected in a professional, transparent way, through a process
that is above board and keeps the integrity high and the politics low.
8. A return to “free
market” transferring for student-athletes.
9. Delete all references to
coaching out-of-season from the DIAA Rulebook.
10. More night girls games
at the public schools.
11. A DIAA policy that school ADs may not be a head coach in
their own program.
Fuller explanations:
1. It’s an embarrassment
that there are Catholic schools that don’t want to play other Catholic
schools. As a community bound together by a common faith, it is awkward
at best to justify a Catholic school not wanting to be part of the
conference that bears the name “Catholic.” Let’s have a 6-team Catholic
Conference. Let’s have ALL those girls improve their skills by playing
in that conference against tough competition.
2. Stormin’ Norman’s was a
great Wilmington tradition. Moreover, on the high school girls side, it
did not compete or conflict with the other (schools) summer league.
When it was going, there were high school girls hoops being played 4
nights a week between the two leagues.
3. Contracting the season
may somehow make sense on a nickels & dimes basis, but it’s not good in
terms of the sport and furthering the development of our high school
talent into collegiate talent. Following DIAA’S logic, we should take a
month off the high school academic year. I mean, hey! It
would save money, right? Have them start in October or
get out in early May. Cutting corners in sports is no less foolish
than cutting corners in academics. The more students study,
the more intelligent they get (or so says the theory). The more athletes play, the better they get.
Colleges know this and will go looking for talent from states who
understand this.
4. The mercy rule is just
dumb. If it’s not in the pro or college game, why have it in the high
school game?
5. In talking to a fellow
hoops journalist not affiliated with this website recently, the topic of
1,000 point scorers came up and how difficult it is to get all the names
and point totals from all the schools. Yet, in much larger states,
there seems to be no problem. My comrade put it down to Delaware’s
uniqueness in having few long-term coaching staffs and athletic
department personnel. The turnover rate is not nearly as high in New
Jersey or Pennsylvania, for example. The reasoning being that coaches
who are around 10, 15, or 20 years care about their players, teams,
programs, and schools more than a 1, 2, or 3 year coach. A deeper pride
develops the longer you are coaching in one place. And this could be
extended to athletic department folks, too. I, personally, believe
other factors are at work as well. Schools just don’t keep these
records. In recent years, I approached one school in particular that
has a good handful of 1,000 point scorers. The program, after repeated
requests, has not provided even half of the totals! I can only conclude
it’s because they don’t know the totals themselves! And who is
going to go back to all the old scorebooks – if they even exist anymore
– and painstakingly add them up for girls who played over 4 and 5
seasons? It’s just not feasible. So, those figures are lost forever.
And it’s a shame. It’s a shame for all the great players from all the
schools who should be on the 1,000 point list, but who are not because
no one felt like adding their points up.
6. If you can’t
keep career point totals on your star basketball players, could you
at least think about honoring your superstars – your legends – by
retiring their numbers? To my knowledge, only THREE JERSEYS in the
whole state are hanging in gyms: Kristin (Mills) Caldwell’s at
Caravel, and Elena Delle Donne’s and Val Whiting’s jerseys at
Ursuline. Go to Pennsylvania. Walk into a school’s gym with a
perennially good basketball team, and you’ll see multiple
jerseys on display. It’s a great, powerful, and inexpensive way to
honor the cream of the crop. Why are just three players’
jerseys/numbers retired? I’d like to see this time-honored practice
become much more common.
7. Boy, this is a biggie!
Having gone through 4 coaching interviews at 4 different high schools, I
can tell you that there is a huge amount of difference from school to
school. There is almost no standardization. You can be interviewed
one-on-one with just the athletic director. You can face a full panel
of people. Or something in-between. Often, schools put all their eggs
in the “character” basket, trying to make sure that they get a good person, while they spend precious little time ascertaining the
basketball knowledge of the individual. Sometimes, not enough emphasis
is put on character. There has to be a balance. The best interview I
ever went through was at Unionville High School in Pennsylvania. There,
I faced a panel consisting of: the Athletic Director, the
Vice-Principal, two parents of players on the team, one Head Coach of a
non-basketball team at the school, and an actual current player on the
team. The interview was thorough, fair, and professional. Delaware
programs could really learn a thing or two from the Unionville model.
8. When people are free to
choose, usually things go better. Why should it be a crime if a student
wants to go to 4 different high schools and play sports at those schools
all 4 years? Isn’t this America? Even if the athlete is switching
schools BECAUSE OF the sports program, what’s wrong with letting the
market forces prevail? Why should an athlete be penalized a year
eligibility for wanting to leave a program that is not a good fit for
one that potentially is?
No
matter what the athlete does, it doesn’t affect the State’s revenue
flow negatively. The State will still get the property taxes from
the parents regardless. And if a student transfers from a public to
a private or Catholic school, the State makes out. Same taxes
coming in. One less student to educate. As adults, we are allowed
to change jobs as often as we want with little or no penalty. Why
can’t kids go to school where they want without a penalty?
9. The “coaching
out-of-season” rules are probably the most misunderstood, most violated,
and perhaps most unnecessary in the whole DIAA rulebook. Many other
states do not have these restrictions. Moreover, in Delaware, it only
leads to people “ratting out” coaches, investigations by DIAA, and
resultant suspensions and other harsh penalties. Instead of focusing so
much energy on policing this and creating a climate that encourages
coaches to turn in other coaches, why not go free market? The only
restrictions should be that you can’t coach at more than one high school
in the same sport in the same season (duh!), and you cannot require that the athletes you are coaching out-of-season (i.e.
- from your school team) join your club team, participate in your
clinics or workouts, etc. Other than that? Knock yourself out!
10. The story has it that
at one time, there were a lot of night games at the public high
schools. Just like there still are at the Catholic, Independent and
Non-Conference schools. But, then there was trouble at these games.
Fights were getting too common and the atmosphere was becoming a bit
dangerous. So, the games were largely moved to right after school –
where no one could or would see them. My guess is that the problems
were largely confined to boys games. And, in the name of equity,
school administrators lumped the girls teams in with the boys and made
the 2:30, 3:00, 3:30 game times universal across all their teams – boys
and girls. But maybe it’s time to relax the policy. Let these teams be
seen in prime time! And if trouble crops up in the way of crowd
misbehavior, handle it on a case-by-case basis.
11.
This may be a rule that could be adopted with a grandfather clause
that would affect all ADs named in the future because making it
effective now to cover current ADs would cause great tremendous
protest and outrage from those with teams. Still, here's the
thinking: Athletic Directors who also coach a team at their
school set themselves up for a potential conflict of interest
scenario. Even the most morally sound and judicious ADs will be, at
some point, thrust into situations where there is an appearance
of conflict of interest, whether grounded or not. We all know that
in this business, perception is everything. I would allow ADs
to coach in an assistant capacity, but no longer as a head
coach. Balancing two roles – management (AD) and labor (coach) –
that were not meant to be combined in one person is like walking a
very tricky tightrope.
Jim Charles
January 19, 2010
Additional Material:
October 28, 2011
DelGirlsHoops@aol.com