Coupeville Sports

First of all, they have to deal with me.

But get past that (and I’m not sure the thin-skinned folks in Langley ever will…) and, especially at the high school level, you have a constant barrage of things to deal with.

You have to win games, you have to teach skills, but you also have to deal with the petri dish of emotion that is a high school.

Unlike professional sports, where you’re paid, so who really cares about your feelings, trying to hold together the often-fragile psyches of a group of teenagers while making hard decisions based on ability can be amazingly nerve-wracking.

Certainly, you coach at the sports factories like ATM, and they might can you, even if you win 47 games in four years and go to back-to-back state title games.

But at schools like Coupeville, where the expectations are a little more tamped down, there is still the eternal debate. Who plays? How much do they play? When do they play? Do you try to win games or find a moment on the floor for everyone?

Every parent thinks they know the game better than the coach. Every fan thinks they know the game better than the coach. Every writer babbles on and on and then everyone realizes, no they certainly DO NOT know the game better than the coach.

If you are a player here in Coupeville, a parent here in Coupeville, there is one important thing to remember. Coupeville doesn’t cut players.

We can’t. We don’t have enough bodies.

And yet, at a lot of schools, people get cut. They don’t make the team at all. They don’t get to wear the uniform, to be on the bench, to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Coupeville, like other small towns, gives everyone a chance to play. You show up, you put in the work, you get a chance.

In the last six months, I have seen coaches in all sports bend over backwards to make sure even their bench warmers get a moment. A chance to take the field. A chance to say they wore the red and black in a live game.

It happened in football, tennis, soccer, you name it. Basketball is no different.

I have seen them set up plays to make sure every basketball player scored before the season was done.

We are Coupeville and we celebrate all our players.

But they keep score for a reason. Teams are trying to win games, and the reality is, not all players are equal. We cheer them all on, but when it comes to crunch time, any coach who deserves to be called a coach has to make tough decisions. Decisions that will give their squad the best chance to win.

That’s why they keep score.

In a magical world, every player would get to play in every game. Of course, in a lot of athletic worlds, you would already have had your dream crushed four months back.

We put a uniform on their backs. We cheer for them. And, if we really, truly care about their development as players and people, we step back and consider why coaches make the decisions they make.

There is a Senior Night for a reason. A time to reflect on the players who have given, day in and day out, to their programs. A night to shine.

The playoffs are stark and unsentimental. A time to win, a time to put your best team on the floor, the team that will give you the best chance to achieve victory and advance on to the next day.

It may sound cruel. Sports are cruel by nature.

If you don’t know that by now, go look at the athletic programs at big schools.

It will give you a whole new appreciation of what Coupeville coaches accomplish on a daily basis.