Life And Basketball
Author: Cory Swanson
Life and Basketball
As the (former) County Attorney for a decade, I have stepped on a few toes around here. It just comes with the territory.
My legendary predecessor, John Flynn, used to say the only way he could be more unpopular was to sign up as the high school basketball coach. The saving grace of being a lawyer – or a judge – is that our jobs are sufficiently mysterious, we can bluff our way through situations when it’s all up in the air. It’s a lot harder to do that as a coach. It has to be one of the most high-pressure jobs in the world. You’re performing literally in an arena with hundreds of eyes on you. And nine out of ten people in the stands think they know more about the game than you do.
I suppose that’s why the shelf life of a Class B coach of any sport, but particularly the high visibility ones like football, basketball, and volleyball, is relatively short. Having a year-to-year contract doesn’t much help that situation. The school board is therefore faced each year with the job of deciding whether to re-hire a coach or look for another poor sucker who has decided his or her self-esteem is too high and wants to be knocked down a couple of notches.
And don’t even get me started on the glamor of being a member of the school board! If you’re good, you are sentenced to a life term. If you do anything to rock the boat, you have just as many critics as the basketball coach (probably the same ones) lining up to tell you all about the 3 R’s.
Which brings us to our latest, but probably not our last, community uproar over a coaching job. The school board chose not to re-hire the girl’s head basketball coach. There are strong feelings on both sides of the issue. I’m somewhat conflicted. My kids don’t play basketball, but my daughter is a manager. As a would-be expert in the stands, I’ve been frustrated with a few things. But I decided instead of complaining from the cheap seats, I could get down on the court and try to help. So I approached the coaches about volunteering to help the junior high program next year. With the impending coaching change, that may or may not happen now.
But this is not the crime of the century. The school board did its job, made its decision, and now has to deal with the consequences and find a new coach. Some complain they did not follow the recommendation of their administrators. That’s true. But those are recommendations only; the school board trustees have the actual decision-making authority. We have long advocated local control of schools, placed in the hands of the school board, not as a rubber stamp for the administrators, but in partnership with them and as oversight for them. The school board is elected by the community, and they are the ones ultimately accountable to the voters for their leadership. I have seen unhealthy schools where the school board did whatever the superintendent told them. And I’ve seen unhealthy schools where the school board governed erratically and did whatever it pleased.
I think ours is trying its best to chart a responsible course by listening to the professionals but rendering its own judgment.
Some in the community are handing around a petition for a recall election on the school board. That’s probably a failed effort. Years ago, I worked as an attorney at the Department of Justice, and somehow I ended up fielding all the recall election inquiries from disgruntled activists around the state. The first thing I told them to do was read the statute where it lists the necessary grounds for a recall election of an elected official: conviction of a felony, official misconduct, incompetence (that’s a can of worms), disability, or violation of oath of office.
You can’t recall an elected official just because you don’t like the decision he or she made. And it likely requires a special election, financed by the county or the school board. Oh, and by the way, there will be a bunch of lawyers and court fights along the way, also likely financed by the school board. Love or hate the school board’s decision, a re-hiring decision of a basketball coach probably does not fall within the recall election criteria. (And you can’t recall any official in office less than 2 months, just in case that is relevant to this discussion.)
Speaking of those days when I was fielding calls about recall elections, there were 3 main counties who were my regular customers. They were Glacier County (Cut Bank / Browning), Lincoln County (Libby / Troy / Eureka), and Ravalli County (Hamilton, Stevensville, Florence, Corvallis). If you have followed the news about those three counties for the past two decades, you know they have enough local government drama to host a Real Housewives of Western Montana television series. In other words, conflict begets conflict, until none of the rational and even-tempered people want to run for public office. I would not wish that future upon Townsend and Broadwater County.
What to do about this current predicament? First, take a deep breath and allow the situation to percolate. These are difficult decisions made by people who are doing what they believe is right. Second, let the coaches know you still care and let the school board know you appreciate their volunteer service. Third, get more involved, like I was trying to do. If you truly care about our community and the future of these programs, go help. There isn’t a line of people out the door and around the block who are volunteering to help with school activities. Finally, if you want to run for school board or any other position, do it for the right reasons, not as a vengeance tour.
So let me close by saying thank you to David Lawson for your years of coaching in Townsend. But I also want to say thank you to the members of the School Board for your dedication to this community and your willingness to make difficult and at times unpopular decisions. I haven’t agreed with any of you 100% of the time. But you have served in the arena, and that matters.
Cory Swanson
(Not a basketball expert)
