Hits and misses

I’m sure many of you read the paper last Wednesday published in a city northeast of here that told the world about five players that decided to leave Eastern Washington University’s women’s basketball program. The story focused on Coach Wendy Schuller’s coaching style and how the girls were unhappy with several aspects of the season, the most successful in Schuller’s 14-year career at the Cheney campus.

According to the story the girls seemed disappointed that Athletic Director Bill Chaves didn’t want to know what the problems were. It seemed that during a long losing streak midway through the season Schuller showed a little tough love and locked the girls out of the locker room until they earned the right to return. It took a couple of weeks but the girls seemed to respond and began winning again. But that episode was a bit much for some of the girls.

Coaches have done so many different things over the years to get players to respond and play to the best of their abilities. It isn’t easy for a coach to deal with 12 – 15 different personalities and finding the right tone of voice to get their point across.

But when the coach is dealing with the whole team the treatment should be equal and in this case it sure seemed like it was. A coach’s job is to win and this team had some great moments.

They led the Gonzaga Bulldogs with one second to play until Elle Tinkle tossed in a rebound basket at the buzzer to snatch victory away from the Eagles.

They also won the school’s first ever post season basketball game, a WNIT victory over the WSU Cougars on the road. Never mind that they got blown out on the road the very next game, the WSU win was huge for the program.

Going back to the athletic director, these kids should know by now that ADs don’t like hiring coaches because they got under a player or two’s skin. ADs want their teams to win. And this year was a great year for both the boys’ and girls’ teams. For the girls that are leaving here is a bit of advice. There is no guarantee that you will be happy at your next stop. I’m sure the new team’s sales pitch is far better than the one given by Wendy Schuller. For the girls’ sake, they better be happier at the new home or else they will certainly be miserable.

On Saturday, Roger Krug and I went to Cheney to see the Big Sky Track and Field championships. We met up with one of Roger’s teammates from the Columbia Basin College football days, Ken Garman. Ken grew up in Othello and now makes Yelm his home. He has season tickets to the EWU Eagle football games and I’m looking forward to visiting with him this fall. Ken is a former EWSC Savage who played in Cheney in 1964-65.

We had a lot of laughs and it was certainly fun listening to the stories Roger and Ken told about the other. Not sure who got the best of whom but if laughter is the best medicine then I doubt I will need to see a doctor anytime soon!

It was a beautiful day in Cheney for the championships. Interestingly enough, the storm that was supposed to hit in the late afternoon held off quite nicely. There was a slight breeze during the day but the wind didn’t kick up until the last athlete crossed the finish line in the 4 X 400 meter relay, the last event of the day.

It was fun watching these great college athletes and seeing which schools had the best track teams.

We enjoyed watching the women’s hammer throw at 10:00 am and were impressed with the far ranging talent and expertise shown by several of the better throwers. To me it looks like the most dangerous event especially when the folks marking the distance scatter after a huge throw is unleashed.

On Sunday I read the paper published in the city northeast of here and I was thinking that there would be some great pictures taken and put on the front page of the sports section from the track championship, but the story didn’t appear until page 5 and not one picture. For a track and field championship held a mere 16 miles from the city where the paper was published the coverage fell short of my expectations. In track terminology I guess you could say they scratched.

So, last week there were two stories in the paper published in a city northeast of here one that was a direct hit at a coach and a real miss on the coverage for a college conference championship.

I’m not sure if that paper should be very proud of either one but the funny thing is I bet they are.