The Easiest Part of a Coach's Job
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The cuts.
I wish I had Coach Homer Simpson's philosophy of cutting - you, you, you and you are cut. The rest of you made the team. Except you, you and you - you are cut.
Cutting isn't any fun at all. Yesterday, we made cuts for our 7th grade basketball team. Most of the cuts were easy in that there was little doubt the player was not one of the twelve best trying out. None of them were easy in that a kid's heart is getting broken.
7th grade cuts are the worst ones of all because they are the first cuts for most kids. What did Cat Stevens sing about the first cut being the deepest? I think he was writing about his 7th grade basketball experience.
This is the first time some of them realize they are not very good. Of course, some don't realize it even when they are let go. There is shock, tears, anger and bitterness. I still have ill feelings for Marvin Smith, the man who cut me from my 7th grade team and kept Josh Keiser instead. It is troubling to think I will be the focus of several people's anger in the coming years when they think about being cut.
You might imagine that the kids look around and see that they are not very good. Well, they don't. If one lay-up managed to go in, that is the one they remember. If one jumper banked in for three, that is enough to make the squad. It takes a special kid to look around and realize he is not one of the better ones out there.
The ones who do realize they aren't any good often don't stick around for the actual cuts. Many will cut themselves, usually with an excuse about concentrating on homework or not having parental permission. After we did sprints at the end of Thursday's tryout, a kid came up to us and said, "My mom doesn't want me to play this year." His mom had not had time to see him between the 90 minutes he tried out and the time of his explanation, but we didn't bother to call him out on it. We told him that was a tough break and he could hopefully try again next year.
There will likely be parent complaints about some part of the process as well. Last season, a high school player's father emailed our coaching staff about his son who had been cut. Of course, we got the usuals about his up-side, how he was better than some who had made the team and about how it was not fair for some contrived reason. He also mentioned that family reunions would now be sad affairs whenever basketball was brought up. That was a new one.
Competitive scholastic sports might be the first real dose of reality for many people. Up until now, these kids have been told they were special. I remember how my granddad used to brag about my golf skills when we made our way around Eastgate's par 3 course. I was the next Nicklaus. Then I tried out for the golf team and realized he had been full of crap.
Frankly, that is a good word to describe making cuts. It is crap. It keeps you up at night and makes you hurt. It makes you angry at a kid who is stupid enough to think that if he hustles from drill to drill, you won't notice that his shots never hit the rim. It is crap. Thankfully, it is now over.
Until next year.
(Originally posted on the Scenic City Sportsblog at http://chriscarpentersblog.blogspot.com/. Chris Carpenter is a history teacher and basketball coach in Chattanooga, TN)
