Sanders' firing not shocking but raises issues

3 comments:

• 6Characters posted at 5:23 pm on Thu, Jan 5, 2012.

  Posts: 28

  Motis?

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• RavenFan posted at 12:27 pm on Fri, Jan 6, 2012.

  Posts: 11

  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?

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• SKRDad posted at 7:31 am on Thu, Jan 12, 2012.

  Posts: 2

  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...

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