The concept of a HS basketball PROGRAM!!!(rant)

I'm a little perturbed right now about a situation I was just in. I spoke to some of my good friends on the coaching staff, including the head basketball coach about it. This stems from the freshman basketball team. Due to my personal schedule with my son, I stopped coaching last year when I was only able to see my son for a limited time. When the new head basketball coach came in, I found out it was a good friend of mine. We had worked together in the past, and had even gone to Le'Maz classes with our wives. He needed some coaches and I told him I could help him out, but her would have to work with my personal schedule. He offered me the 1st asst/JV team, but my visitation schedule didn't allow for that. I told him I could take the freshman A or B team. I told him that I preferred the B team, because at this juncture in my life, I didn't need the stress of trying to win a district championship. I wanted to coach the young players in the fundamentals and take them as far as they could go while still having fun. He agreed and was very greatful for my help. I knew that it was going to work out to everyone's benefit.
Then comes the proverbial bump in the road. The other basketball coach is a young freshman football coach, and being that the Varsity football team went two rounds into the playoffs, he stuck around football practice and didn't come out to basketball practice until football season was completely over. This I didn't understand because the freshman basketball team practices from 6-8 in the morning, AND he said that he would be out since day 1 of basketball season. Since the A team had a game before the end of football season, the head basketball coach asked me to take the A team. Since those boys needed a full time coach I agreed to take them. Yesterday, the b team comes in for practice and the coach asks me when his first game is. I tell him in two weeks, and it must be nice to have "my" season schedule. He says back to me "Hey, you wanted the A-team" to which I reply "No, the A team needed a coach that would actually show up to practice and know what to do (he had no concept of our offensive or defensive scheme nor did he make any sort of an effort to learn them).
Today, we scrimmage and he has two a-teamers that stopped showing up to a-team practice and three football studs. During the scrimmage, I tell him that I am going to move those studs up. After he ends his pratice at 7:30, I tell them to stay to finish up with the A-team and they do. Now, this b-team coach confronts me in the halls and asks if I am going to take all his best players. I try to explain to him that the hierarchy in place is Varsity, JV, Freshman-A, JV-B, and Fresman-B. he says that this isn't fair because he recruited the players to come out. I told him that kids get moved up and he starts whining about how he's not going to recruit anybody anymore. I try to get him to understand that this is a program and that the Varsity, JV, and Freshman A team play for championships, while the JV-B and Freshman B are so that the kids can get the fundamentals and get in court time.

I try to explain to him that athletically speaking, the goal of this program is to make each and every athlete a better player in preparation for Varsity competition. In that the best players will play on the most competitive teams. He tells me that he can win all the games with these guys on his team. DUH!!! They are playing against kids who have trouble making a lay up. At that point I'm starting to lose my temper with him and I tell him that I am going to make the decisions that will help the basketball program and not his personal ego issues. I really think this kid is a brain dead idiot.

 

UPDATE:

The head basketball coach is in San Antonio on a tourney, and yesterday, I spoke with the b-coach in the coaches office. I tried to re-explain to him the purpose of the b-team. I told him that I understand that you want to win, but the best players need to be on the a-team. He thinks I am going to send him ineligible scraps to appease him. I told him that including all ineligibles, there are 17 quality players. I don't like to carry any more than 15, but I usually take the top 12 cream of the crop. This way, everyone gets a good amount of court time. He'll get some of my kids that are pretty good, but lacking in some aspect of the game that would cause them to get less playing time. They could get plenty of game time with him. He's starts b****ing how he recruits these quality kids and I take them. Nothing I said to him was internalized. Then he tells me that the three kids I took don't want to play on the A-team because of the 6:00 practice and wanting to have fun. Well, after 30 minutes of practice with them on Wednesday, I take them to my tournamnet yesterday. These kids are athletes, but they don't know the plays yet. Regardless, they are unrelenting on defense and we beat a district opponent 28-14. I know that the score wan't very high, but if we had made 20% of the shots we took, we could have easily scored 50 on them. Our shooting was cold all night. Anyway, all the boys got court time, and we really had a lot of fun, and after the game, I took them to Mr. Gatti's, which really surprised the whole team. Then I dropped more good news in their laps. I told them that the schools schedule is changing and we will be able to practice from 7:00 to 8:30 am. which is reasonable. The kiddos were ecstatic!

Tonight we play again, and those football players all seem pretty excited about this new level of competition.

Oh, I also find out the the b coach went crying to the head football coach and the hfc thinks that it's not fair that I take those boys that the b coach recruited. If and when the time comes, I want to ask the hfc to put himself in my shoes. If that same b-coach recruited a stud that could help his varsity, would he take him or leave him with the coach that recruited him. Besides, football business has nothing to do with basketball business.