Foul Territory
A sports blog with no specific focus, though I like wrestling and baseball
3.03.2005
Shot in the Arm
Boy, John Chaney has had a lot of ink spilled on his behalf this past week. For those of you who aren't familiar, Chaney felt that the St. Joseph basketball team was not being called for continually setting moving screens against his Temple team. Irate, he sent in a third string forward for some rough play, and he fouled out in four minutes. One of those fouls knocked a St. Joe's player to the floor, where he broke his arm bracing himself from the fall. Chaney suspended himself from one game, then the school got him for three, then he said he'd skip the entire A-10 tournament, as well as meeting with and apologizing to the injured player's family.
Since then, there have been many calls for Chaney to resign or Temple to fire the 73 year old coach who has been at the school for 22 years. They say time has passed him by if he thought he could send a "goon" (his words) into a game to rough it up a bit. People point to his behavior in the past where he has very publicly lost his temper, though I'm pretty sure this is the first time that he went all Bobby Knight on us. To his credit, Chaney has accepted responsibility for his actions and seems genuinely ashamed of his actions, and he's by all accounts a stand up guy, except for his occasional anger problems. He's done a lot for his school and for the players who he has coached, both those in the NBA and those who are doing other things. He's most definitely old-school.
I don't have a problem with Chaney missing the A-10 tournament or any other amount of games this season. My problem is with the way it's been handled. The SportsProf weighs in with his opinion, and I agree with a lot of his sentiments. What hasn't gotten a lot of play in the press is how the suspensions and penalties and everything else seem to be far more dependent on the health of the St. Joseph player's arm than with any actions by Chaney or his "goon." Is the problem Chaney's actions or the results coming from them? The resulting injury could almost be described as a freak occurrence. I finally saw video of the injury yesterday afternoon. The "goon" committed a hard foul that sent the player to the floor. He braced himself with his arm and then grabbed it in pain. If you watch basketball on television, you probably see similar play every third game or so with a player tumbling to the floor and catching himself. The difference is that he doesn't break his arm...usually. It seems to me that Chaney could have said, "Go break that kid's arm," and if his player failed to do so, we might never have heard about this, since the officials would have called their flagrant/technical fouls and we'd be done with it. Instead, the player received no special instruction to injure a player, but since an injury occurred, it's the story that won't go away.
Which is worse: instructing a player to play rough and having an injury occur or instructing a player to injure an opponent but having him fail to do so? This is the crux of my argument here. All the noise out there has focused on the injured player, and she should get his due, but it seems far more important, in determining the fate of John Chaney, to focus on his intentions rather than the results. The results matter, and they really matter to the injured player, but moving past the results in terms of determining Chaney's fate seems like the wisest course of action to me. Of course, the reactions to the event by the A-10 and Temple suggest that the wisest course of action isn't going to be followed any time soon.
I'm all for second chances, provided proper punishment is meted out. These days, the smallest misstep or misstatement results in cries for firings and resignations, especially since any trip up is instantaneously transmitted across the country via television, blogs, and websites. This is how we get the Larry Summers incident and nationwide calls for Chaney's resignation by people who doesn't even know that Temple's athletic teams are the Owls or haven't seen the incident in question. Summers' statements don't undo a lifetime of academic work that qualify him to be president of Harvard any more than this act by Chaney suddenly makes a 73 year old man unfit to continue in his life's work. Sometimes coaches should be fired, but I'd hope that if this fate befalls Chaney, that it's at least done for some of the right reasons, not to satisfy the media.
Since then, there have been many calls for Chaney to resign or Temple to fire the 73 year old coach who has been at the school for 22 years. They say time has passed him by if he thought he could send a "goon" (his words) into a game to rough it up a bit. People point to his behavior in the past where he has very publicly lost his temper, though I'm pretty sure this is the first time that he went all Bobby Knight on us. To his credit, Chaney has accepted responsibility for his actions and seems genuinely ashamed of his actions, and he's by all accounts a stand up guy, except for his occasional anger problems. He's done a lot for his school and for the players who he has coached, both those in the NBA and those who are doing other things. He's most definitely old-school.
I don't have a problem with Chaney missing the A-10 tournament or any other amount of games this season. My problem is with the way it's been handled. The SportsProf weighs in with his opinion, and I agree with a lot of his sentiments. What hasn't gotten a lot of play in the press is how the suspensions and penalties and everything else seem to be far more dependent on the health of the St. Joseph player's arm than with any actions by Chaney or his "goon." Is the problem Chaney's actions or the results coming from them? The resulting injury could almost be described as a freak occurrence. I finally saw video of the injury yesterday afternoon. The "goon" committed a hard foul that sent the player to the floor. He braced himself with his arm and then grabbed it in pain. If you watch basketball on television, you probably see similar play every third game or so with a player tumbling to the floor and catching himself. The difference is that he doesn't break his arm...usually. It seems to me that Chaney could have said, "Go break that kid's arm," and if his player failed to do so, we might never have heard about this, since the officials would have called their flagrant/technical fouls and we'd be done with it. Instead, the player received no special instruction to injure a player, but since an injury occurred, it's the story that won't go away.
Which is worse: instructing a player to play rough and having an injury occur or instructing a player to injure an opponent but having him fail to do so? This is the crux of my argument here. All the noise out there has focused on the injured player, and she should get his due, but it seems far more important, in determining the fate of John Chaney, to focus on his intentions rather than the results. The results matter, and they really matter to the injured player, but moving past the results in terms of determining Chaney's fate seems like the wisest course of action to me. Of course, the reactions to the event by the A-10 and Temple suggest that the wisest course of action isn't going to be followed any time soon.
I'm all for second chances, provided proper punishment is meted out. These days, the smallest misstep or misstatement results in cries for firings and resignations, especially since any trip up is instantaneously transmitted across the country via television, blogs, and websites. This is how we get the Larry Summers incident and nationwide calls for Chaney's resignation by people who doesn't even know that Temple's athletic teams are the Owls or haven't seen the incident in question. Summers' statements don't undo a lifetime of academic work that qualify him to be president of Harvard any more than this act by Chaney suddenly makes a 73 year old man unfit to continue in his life's work. Sometimes coaches should be fired, but I'd hope that if this fate befalls Chaney, that it's at least done for some of the right reasons, not to satisfy the media.
Andy, 6:03 PM
