bluetraveler wrote:I can understand cutting a player(at any level)for disciplinary reasons,don't understand keeping so few players(6) to start with,who did they practice against?tartanblue- what does it say about the kids and parents at green when one must plan on a couple of kids quiting?One would think that if pre-season was rough enough the quitters would have given up by the start of real play, unless they are made to believe they are superstars by parents and quite because they don't think they are getting the playing time their skills deserve.Parents and board should support the coach at least publicly.Which by the way leads to my final point_DON"T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN THE PAPER! Most papers will only print the official statements,and know nothing about what goes on behind closed doors or said priviatly- read personel matters-until official statements are released.PDT I personally wouldn't take much stock in,in fact wouldn't believe if they ran a story about the flood wall being painted>if it doesn't come off the wire I doubt much investigation is being done.
That is true, but however there could also be times when a family would have to move and thus a kid has to quit....also you also have to be prepared for a kid not being able to play because of Grades....which I believe a kid should never have grades bad enough that they could not play, but it does happen from time to time. Either way you still do not just keep barely enough for a JV and Varsity roster. Especially at a small school like Green, New Boston, St. Joe, even East you can not be too picky in who you keep...THESE SCHOOLS DO NOT HAVE THE NUMBERS TO DO THAT. Cutting the kid who was a disciplin problem I have no problem with but the freshman he cut should have never been cut especially with the number that came out.
I have no dog in this fight but as far as cutting players here is my thoughts. If you keep a kid who isn't going to help the program and is bad news or has parents that are bad news then you are better off cutting them and being done with it. If you keep them they will just be poison to the rest of the team and program. However sounds like in this case the parents continued to be poison to the program and coach. Just my opinion
It wasn't so much that he cut players, but why?, with the numbers being so low to begin with. At a school this small the JV is more or less about "bodies" to field a team rather than competing for a JV league title. If you're a good player your going to the Varsity anyway. I know most of the kids that were cut, they were not discipline problems or lazy kids who only showed up when the mood hit them. 3 had some sort of disability (clubbed foot, diabetic pump, deaf) which IMO Charlie "Q" couldn't deal with or knew he didn't have the capacity or desire to teach. I can understand the senior, although Charlie "Q" had decided early on that he would never give the kid a second chance to redeem himself. I heard what he had said to the coach during open gym and it wasn't as bad as everyone would have you believe. "Q" was determined to sacrifice a kid to prove a point. At Green, where numbers are few to begin with, why put yourself as a coach in the position of not having enough to play? And that's what happened. They only had 13 players actually. One he kept wasn't legal to begin with (didn't live in the district and didn't have paperwork in order). And after the cuts were made, supposedly another boy (who had not attended any open gyms during the summer) asked to play and was given a uniform by the "Q". Ultimately the kid changed his mind and never suited up. A question I had that never was brought up was why did the Varsity head cut JV kids to begin with? I would think that would be the decision of the JV coach. If they weren't good enough to play Varsity, don't let them sit on the bench during the Varsity game. At least we wouldn't be playing with 2 at the end of the Eastern JV contest and officials wouldn't have had to correct him early in the season about trying to play kids who had already exhausted their eligibility due to the 5 quarter rule. (Didn't think we knew about this, did ya) After the Eastern game, C "Q" went to the AD and told him we had to cancel the rest of the JV schedule because we didn't have enough kids (remember we are down to 11 now, with 1 kid quitting during the JV contest and Poe out with a rolled ankle during the Clay game). The JV game with SJ was canceled. The Cats played with no passion, and everyone in the stands knew something was wrong. Karma had kicked in, Charlie "Q" realized what a colossal mess he had created and decided to walk away from the kids and the mess he made. The definition of resign: resign-Verb 1. to give up office or a job 2. to accept (an unpleasant fact): he resigned himself to the inevitable 3. to give up (a right or claim) [Latin resignare to unseal, destroy] 4. to quit YOU QUIT!!! When you tell the BOE that you want a replacement found ASAP, what did you think they would do? Don't go into semantics, you walked away from the mess you (and only you) created and left us holding the bag! You continue to blame EVERYONE but yourself. No one had an agenda against you. I personally was glad to to have had anyone other than Hopper try to right the ship that he had sank in just 2 short years. But sadly, I was disappointed, especially after finding out that only days after accepting the Green job you applied for the coaching job at Jackson. Not much of a commitment to our local youth. In the 2 games since Fraley took over, the young Cats have played harder and with more passion than they have played all year. No one in this community (except for a couple of ignorant loudmouth mothers) expected Green to be anything more than a young, rebuilding team. We just wanted the kids to play the game the right way, and they were. When you basically play a JV team on a varsity schedule you have no illusions of league championships. I lost all respect for Charlie when he turned his back on our kids and I hope he is never allowed to do the same at another community. I will never call him a Coach as that is a title that is earned, and he has not earned that distinction.
Still, there are several things that nobody can dispute from an outside (non-franklin furnace) perspective. And they are:
1. Cutting the varsity attitude problem was a good thing. 2. Cutting the JV kids due to the low numbers (unless they were disciplinary problems) was probably an error in judgment. 3. "Some" of the community are a disgrace to high school athletics because of the way they treated Kithchen and his family (I don't care how bad you think he was). 4. Most people in the stands have "no clue" about the fundamentals of basketball and yet they run their mouth and actually hurt their respective team. As a result, many young kids spend more time looking in the stands than at their ball/man on defense. 5. I'm telling you, with all the issues that have taken place, GREEN WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET A REPUTABLE COACH TO EVEN CONSIDER TAKING THAT JOB (Not sying they can't give someone a shot at their first varsity job that could develop into a good coach)
Still, I wish the kids at Green the best of luck this season and beyond (except when you play Eastern )
I agree with 1 thru 3. I disagree for the most part with #4 and hope #5 is not true. I have tried to remain silent during this latest debacle but Reds Fan, Frank, Hoot and TartanBlue have more insight than most. This is a good community, we only want what's best for our kids and I, for one, am tired of being blamed for the predicament the basketball program is in because of the stupidity and stubbornness of one individual. As others have already said, no one around here expected titles, only improvement from the last 2 years embarrassments. And we were on our way until numbers threatened the existence of one of our teams. Kitchen or his family soiled his name and efforts on this forum due to their lack of responsibility for anything that went wrong with the program. It was always someone elses' fault, how dare we question his decisions concerning this team. I work with several people who went to school with, or who had him as a teacher during their years in the Ironton school system and no-one, not ONE , was surprised by what just happened. I'll say it again, we now know why he sat beside a head coach for the last 20 years. 1/2 of a year as an interim head coach does not a Head Coach make. Sad, but true. And he'll never be able to escape the mess he made.
frank-n-beans wrote:It wasn't so much that he cut players, but why?, with the numbers being so low to begin with. At a school this small the JV is more or less about "bodies" to field a team rather than competing for a JV league title. If you're a good player your going to the Varsity anyway. I know most of the kids that were cut, they were not discipline problems or lazy kids who only showed up when the mood hit them. 3 had some sort of disability (clubbed foot, diabetic pump, deaf) which IMO Charlie "Q" couldn't deal with or knew he didn't have the capacity or desire to teach. I can understand the senior, although Charlie "Q" had decided early on that he would never give the kid a second chance to redeem himself. I heard what he had said to the coach during open gym and it wasn't as bad as everyone would have you believe. "Q" was determined to sacrifice a kid to prove a point. At Green, where numbers are few to begin with, why put yourself as a coach in the position of not having enough to play? And that's what happened. They only had 13 players actually. One he kept wasn't legal to begin with (didn't live in the district and didn't have paperwork in order). And after the cuts were made, supposedly another boy (who had not attended any open gyms during the summer) asked to play and was given a uniform by the "Q". Ultimately the kid changed his mind and never suited up. A question I had that never was brought up was why did the Varsity head cut JV kids to begin with? I would think that would be the decision of the JV coach. If they weren't good enough to play Varsity, don't let them sit on the bench during the Varsity game. At least we wouldn't be playing with 2 at the end of the Eastern JV contest and officials wouldn't have had to correct him early in the season about trying to play kids who had already exhausted their eligibility due to the 5 quarter rule. (Didn't think we knew about this, did ya) After the Eastern game, C "Q" went to the AD and told him we had to cancel the rest of the JV schedule because we didn't have enough kids (remember we are down to 11 now, with 1 kid quitting during the JV contest and Poe out with a rolled ankle during the Clay game). The JV game with SJ was canceled. The Cats played with no passion, and everyone in the stands knew something was wrong. Karma had kicked in, Charlie "Q" realized what a colossal mess he had created and decided to walk away from the kids and the mess he made. The definition of resign: resign-Verb 1. to give up office or a job 2. to accept (an unpleasant fact): he resigned himself to the inevitable 3. to give up (a right or claim) [Latin resignare to unseal, destroy] 4. to quit YOU QUIT!!! When you tell the BOE that you want a replacement found ASAP, what did you think they would do? Don't go into semantics, you walked away from the mess you (and only you) created and left us holding the bag! You continue to blame EVERYONE but yourself. No one had an agenda against you. I personally was glad to to have had anyone other than Hopper try to right the ship that he had sank in just 2 short years. But sadly, I was disappointed, especially after finding out that only days after accepting the Green job you applied for the coaching job at Jackson. Not much of a commitment to our local youth. In the 2 games since Fraley took over, the young Cats have played harder and with more passion than they have played all year. No one in this community (except for a couple of ignorant loudmouth mothers) expected Green to be anything more than a young, rebuilding team. We just wanted the kids to play the game the right way, and they were. When you basically play a JV team on a varsity schedule you have no illusions of league championships. I lost all respect for Charlie when he turned his back on our kids and I hope he is never allowed to do the same at another community. I will never call him a Coach as that is a title that is earned, and he has not earned that distinction.
I will try to make this short and to the point.... Basically the whole problem that people have is me cutting four players.Which ISN'T the whole problem ,but anyway I will address it as far as the players go.The four players I cut and they were good kids two being sophomores DID NOT have the ability to play on a good freshmen team let alone play jv ball and the other two being freshmen DID NOT have the ability to play on a good 8th grade team.That was my opinion and the jv coach and I talked about this and were in total agreement about not keepeing them but it was my final decision alone to do that.Anything else I did concerning the program I will stand behind.I did try to make a statement about discipline and about working in the summer to be a better player and the ones I cut DID NOT in any way, shape or form do the things they needed to do on any kind of a regular basis that would have helped them be a better player.I was not handing out a uniform because there were extras just to be giving them out.I knew this team would get better as the year goes along and still believe that.I don't need to go over what I have already written you can read it for yourself.You can make this sound as bad as you want and make me look as bad as you want but it still remains a fact I stepped on toes that thought they were wearing golden slippers and wanted things their way and they know who they are.So again say what you want it doesn't effect me at all.I did what I thought was right for a messed up program that I walked into.
Good luck to you Charlie, I feel bad for you and for the team. I just hope that everyone has learned a life lesson in this. I truly believe that you had no intentions that things would turn out this way, but it is what it is. Take this with you and look ahead. The lessons learned, good and bad, will help in the future.
Sawdust wrote:I agree with 1 thru 3. I disagree for the most part with #4 and hope #5 is not true. I have tried to remain silent during this latest debacle but Reds Fan, Frank, Hoot and TartanBlue have more insight than most. This is a good community, we only want what's best for our kids and I, for one, am tired of being blamed for the predicament the basketball program is in because of the stupidity and stubbornness of one individual. As others have already said, no one around here expected titles, only improvement from the last 2 years embarrassments. And we were on our way until numbers threatened the existence of one of our teams. Kitchen or his family soiled his name and efforts on this forum due to their lack of responsibility for anything that went wrong with the program. It was always someone elses' fault, how dare we question his decisions concerning this team. I work with several people who went to school with, or who had him as a teacher during their years in the Ironton school system and no-one, not ONE , was surprised by what just happened. I'll say it again, we now know why he sat beside a head coach for the last 20 years. 1/2 of a year as an interim head coach does not a Head Coach make. Sad, but true. And he'll never be able to escape the mess he made.
Sawdust,I never blamed you or very few others in your comminity maybe you just feel guilty, beats me.There were only a few I made mad because they couldn't control anything and they know who they are. I wasn't looking for titles either,only improvement and a lot of teaching fundamentals of basketball that where never taught to them which was not their fault.I know the people you refer to .One being your chemistry teacher another being the lady that kept my score book on away games which I doubt she feels the way you do and an elementary teacher you have that her father was a boss of mine long ago,but thats a different story. I stayed at Ironton for a number of years coaching because of the loyalty we all had for each other and still do and I liked being with them and what we accomlished.Something I doubt you know anything about as far a loyalty.I won't have a problem holding my head up or finding another job if I choose to do so.I know a lot of people and they know who I am as a person.I also know who you are so why hide behind the SAWDUST pile. A player told me who you were big boy
Chas, If you think you know who I am, then I won't be hard to find. Come and get some of the DUST. It's obvious to me that you don't know who you're callin' out. That, or you just have a fetish for humiliation.
IN A SMALL SCHOOL LIKE GREEN,CLAY,NEW BOSTON,EAST.NOTRE DAME THEY DO NOT HAVE THE NUMBER OF KIDS SOME OTHER SCHOOLS HAVE LIKE BURG,PORTSMOUTH,MINFORD, WEST,NORTHWEST,TO NAME A FEW SOME KIDS ONLY GO OUT FOR A TEAM NOT TRYOUT FOR A TEAM. SO WHEN ACOACH COMES IN AND CUTS SOME KIDS THESE KIDS HAVE NEVER BEEN CUT BEFORE. BUT THE KIDS\PARENTS FREAK OUT1 LITTLE JOHNNIE HAS NEVER BEEN CUT. BUT LITTLE JOHNNIE HAS NEVER WORKED HARD,OR PUT FORTH THE EFFORT! SO WHEN A REAL COACH COMES IN AND CUTS LITTLE JOHNNIE IT HURTS JOHNNIES FELLINGS. JOHNNIES PEE WEE COACH OR DAD OR DADS DRINKING BUDDY SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT JOHNNIE TO PLAY BASKETBALL.BUT WE CAN BLAME THE HIGH SCHOOL COACH. THE KIDS DO NOT HAVE TO TRY . SO TAKE THIS AS A BLESSING RUN AWAY FAR AWAY. THE BLAME WILL BE ON SOME OTHER COACH !
SHAME ON THE BOBCATS TEACH YOUR KIDS TO PLAY BASKETBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last edited by rosemount rebel on Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rosemount rebel wrote:IN A SMALL SCHOOL LIKE GREEN,CLAY,NEW BOSTON,EAST.NOTRE DAME THEY DO NOT HAVE THE NUMBER OF KIDS SOME OTHER SCHOOLS HAVE LIKE BURG,PORTSMOUTH,MINFORD, WEST,NORTHWEST,TONAME A FEW SOME KIDS ONLY GO OUT FOR A TEAM NOT TRYOUT FOR A TEAM. SO WHEN ACOACH COMES IN AND CUTS SOME KIDS THESE KIDS HAVE NEVER BEEN CUT BEFORE. BUT THE KIDS\PARENTS FREAK OUT1 LITTLE JOHNNIE HAS NEVER BEEN CUT. BUT LITTLE JOHNNIE HAS NEVER WORKED HARD,OR PUT FORTH THE EFFORT! SO WHEN A REAL COACH COMES IN AND CUTS LITTLE JOHNNIE IT HURTS JOHNNIES FELLINGS. JOHNNIES PEE WEE COACH OR DAD OR DADS DRINKING BUDDY SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT JOHNNIE TO PLAY BASKETBALL.BUT WE CAN BLAME THE HIGH SCHOOL COACH. THE KIDS DO NOT HAVE TRY . SO TAKE THIS AS A BLESSING RUN AWAY FAR AWAY. THE BLAME WILL BE ON SOME OTHER COACH !
SHAME ON THE BOBCATS TEACH YOUR KIDS TO PLAY BASKETBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How about we just move on with our lives. For the last time, It wasn't about cutting kids, but numbers. There weren't enough kids left after the cuts to sustain both teams efficiently for the season, as was proved. Lets just look toward the next game and back our kids and Coach Fraley as they battle Symmes Valley.
HERE IS WHAT I'AM TRYING TO SAY LIKE HERE AT CLAY THERE IS 8 KIDS WHO PLAY PEE WEE BASKETBALL IN THE 5TH GRADE SO THOSE 8 KIDS WILL BE OUR 7TH GRADE TEAM. OUR 8TH GRADE TEAM, OUR 9TH GRADE TEAM, AND AND OUR jv TEAM. DO THEY HAVE TO TRY OUT NO! THEY DO HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY. IF THEY WANT TO WIN. SO IF A DAD IS COACHING OR HIS BUDDY SO THEY CAN PLAY THERE KIDS IN PEE WEE AND THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BASKETBALL THE OTHER KIDS WILL NOT LEARN.
Who in the H#$% comes on here and calls people out. Are we gonna have an afternoon after school junior high fist fight ? Is there anyway we could move along ? After all , this is about high school basketball . The kids are the ones who suffer from all this crap. Let it go. Good luck to everyone involved in the future. GO BOBCATS!
Last edited by hoot on Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
I have only one question concerning this statement: "I wasn't looking for titles either,only improvement and a lot of teaching fundamentals of basketball that where never taught to them which was not their fault."
If this is true about teaching fundamentals, why cut the underclassmen that were NOT discipline problems(as stated by you) and teach them fundamentals and maybe make a player out of one of them?
Coach Kitchen, GOOD LUCK in the future. Keep your head up and forget this mess. By the way, isn't Green considered a D4 school? You all keep calling that small?? The part that gets me the most is the harrassement Kitchen and his family took....over high school basketball. Shame on those that thought harrassing calls, notes and leaving ugly stuff on the porch was a way to deal with this. No wonder the guy resigned. Hope you coach somewhere else because alot of schools would be appreciative to have someone with your knowledge of the sport.
Div IV is the smallest division in Ohio basketball and yes; if someone was harrassing Coach they should be ashamed. That's not the way to address the situation at all.
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GO BOBCATS!