04/26/24
May 04, 2004
Middle school basketball coaches in New Jersey face discipline for awarding one of their 13-year-old players a "crybaby award," complete with a trophy, at the annual team banquet. A story in the Atlantic City Press states that the boy plays for the team in spite of being the shortest person in his eighth grade class.
posted by rcade to basketball at 10:29 AM - 5 comments
Here's my comment from yesterday. I stuck it a notepad: The boy's trophy had a silver figure of a baby atop a pedestal engraved with his name, which was spelled incorrectly. (From the Atlantic City article) Talk about pissing in the open wound. The only thing that sounded remotely positive about this is that it seems like Terrence has a pretty good dad. That should help a lot in this. Who wants to track down Coach Dipshit and mail him a "Jackass Award"? I'll commission a suitable trophy. Who wants to track down Coach Dipshit Jackass and mail him a "Jackass Dipshit Award"? I'll 'commission' a suitable trophy...after lunch.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:21 PM on May 05, 2004
I've seen "roast" awards handed out at season-ending banquets, but they were handled a lot better than this. If you're going to hand out mean awards, you hand them out to a LOT of the athletes, and mix the barbs with true awards. For instance, I was given the "Dead Carp Award" at the end of my first swimming season for a truly horrible race performance early in the year, but I also got the "Most Improved" award. There were numerous other dubious "awards" handed out to the other athletes, so I didn't feel singled out. It sounds like this coach was just a jerk trying to humiliate a player that he didn't want on his team.
posted by dusted at 12:35 PM on May 05, 2004
my comment from yesterday: it's hard to pass judgement when we don't know what the boy did to possibly "deserve" the award. but jeez the kid is 13 and willing to play team sports despite his size....i can't think of anything he could have possibly done to justify such an action by adults who are getting paid to teach him. (Joe Goodwin works (or worked) at Pleasantville and coaches basketball, but doesn't neccesarily coach at Pleasantville.)
posted by danostuporstar at 03:59 PM on May 05, 2004
Is it possible that this coach could somehow be ignorant of the connotation that "crybaby" has in this culture? His explanation seems more than a little disingenuous.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 08:02 PM on May 05, 2004
Who wants to track down Coach Dipshit and mail him a "Jackass Award"? I'll commission a suitable trophy.