Count me among the confused.
No matter how it's diced, there are few John Sanders' out there in the East Valley high school coaching cul-de-sac. A Marine at heart, his modus operandi of commitment and relentless work ethic was evident in his kids, and if they ran through the proverbial brick walls for themselves and the program, Sanders reciprocated.
He was as successful on the field - 62-7 with four state championships in five years - as anyone in the state. His kids went on to play college football, an impressive number to Division I colleges (given its size as a Division III school) and many more at lower-level schools.
He was also boorish, egotistical and, often, self-centered. He wasn't well-liked (or even tolerated) by many other coaches for his ways. He was a source of grumbling by others for running up the score. He was rarely interested in other goings-on outside or as it related to the rest of the school and its athletic department. Many other coaches at the school weren't exactly fond of him.
He was brash and honest, sometimes to a fault. And he couldn't have cared less what outsiders thought of him.
By itself, none of that attributes warranted his being fired as football coach by the school on Thursday morning, but cumulatively - plus that whole sitting out his starters for the Chaparral game that ended the regular season.
Though it would be refreshing, Saguaro administration hasn't said anything as to why they dismissed Sanders.
But whether you liked Sanders' decision to sit his guys during that national TV game or not, there's not a snowball's chance I'll buy that the choices from Oct. 30 weren't a significant factor in his fallout. His decision blurred the lines between protecting his kids from injury in (rivalry aside) a relatively insignificant game while in pursuit of a state championship (which I believe), and a disdain to the idea he could easily lose to now-former Chaparral coach Charlie Ragle even with his starting lineup playing (which, given his stubborness and ego, I also believe).
But administration knew ahead of time there was a decent chance Sanders would sit his starters. They discussed it.
This wasn't about wins and losses. If it's about his general disposition and way he goes about his business, then he shouldn't have been hired five years ago in the first place (it's not like they didn't know Sanders' personality). If it's about the Chaparral game, then the administration should answer questions about what it knew and whether it cared to press the issue with Sanders' idea of sitting players. If it's about the backlash then he could have been let go for other minor "upsettings" at any point the past few years, and if D.J. Foster, Luke Rubenzer or Christian Kirk suffered a horrible injury a week before the playoffs began, the outcry would have been Sanders' ego to beat Chaparral (two schools in different divisions where a win or loss for both schools would have negligible effect on playoff positioning) was more important than sitting his kids to keep them healthy for a championship run.
That leaves the best guess as a culmination of his personality, attitude and pressure from a combo-platter of alums and parents disgusted with the Chaparral decision.
There's good cases to be made that Sanders deserves to lie in this bed he's made, but why the administration is now appalled by Sanders' style leaves way too much to the imagination.
6Characters posted at 5:23 pm on Thu, Jan 5, 2012.
Motis?
RavenFan posted at 12:27 pm on Fri, Jan 6, 2012.
The Sander's termination reminds me of some others who were fired for the same reason, that having an egotistical image of themselves being bigger than the game. Bobby Knight, Joe Paterno, Pete Rose, to name a few! This firing was personality driven and nothing more! I've heard a rumor that Sanders told the powers to be while arranging this game, that he would only be interested in playing in the beginning of the season, not at the end close to playoffs. In fact, he threatened then to not play his starters, if the game were to be scheduled on the back end. So, he carries out his threat and goes on to embarass the SUSD and AIA for destroying the competitiveness of the game; thus, the telecast was a dismal failure! Lost in all of this is the complicity of Chapparal' coach, Charlie Ragle. One might ask why the game couldn't be played at the beginning of the season, but Ragle had his motives. His team would be coming off a game against national power, Bishop Gorman and the timing would not be beneficial to his team. The decision then should have made to reconsider scheduling this game for the next year. What is strangely curious to me is why Sander's or the school has not published this?
SKRDad posted at 7:31 am on Thu, Jan 12, 2012.
You have to take into account that this is a new administration. They did not hire Sanders and I have reason to believe that they would not have done so if the choice had been theirs. So the way they see Sanders did not necessarily change. I have not discussed with any of the members of said administration any of this, I thought about doing it but I did not want to put them on the spot, last I talked to them there were students there and I would not put them on the spot in that manner...
Sanders won, yes that can't be argued. But besides the running up the score, he had a habit of rarely playing his 2nd teamers. No matter the score...I found that odd. As a former HS coach, I always saw the "garbage time" as the perfect time to work on the development of the younger and less experienced players. You can drill until you turn blue in the face, and it will never approach Game Speed. It's invaluable time to develop players. But that's a coach's prerogative... What surprised me at the many games I watched was all the unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that we racked up. It seemed like anytime someone had a successful play against our defense, there would be a facemask or a late hit at the end of it. This was supposed to be team whose coach was a strict disciplinarian? Seemed the facts contradicted his reputation there... He was also amazingly unsupportive of his players that had interests outside of football. A year or two ago, he had players quit because of this. Some that had been multiple year starters and got significant minutes in the games. They wanted to participate in other sports and Sanders did not approve. He went as far as to imply that the other sports or interests these players had were "girly" activities. Ok, he didn't imply... He said it outright to the players in question. Personally, as a parent, he and I would have had it out over that. Not acceptable... Sanders is outspoken and combative. There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance, IMHO he didn't tiptoe the line, he walked over it so much it disappeared. As a coach, part of his job was to educate his players on the difference and how to deal with it but he was personally unable to tell where that line was or worse, he didn't care... All that accumulated and finally it was too much and that is why he was fired. Rightly so, I believe.
I predicted a while back that he would be fired, what surprised me was the timing but then again if you wanted to fire him, when would you do it? Right after he won the championship? No. Too awkward. Right before he coached that Allstar game? No. Too awkward... BUT you can't wait too much longer because the preparations needed to be made for the following year... There is no "good" time to do it. So they bit the bullet and did it now...
BTW Admin can't talk because if they give a reason, SUSD can be sued. You can fire for no reason, but if you give a reason it can be fought. Sanders won't come out guns blazing against the admin and SUSD because he wants to coach again. Soon. He does that and he'll become un-hirable. As it is, it's hard to imagine any Az school picking him up any time soon...