pinkpanther

What helped the most to keep Sparta in the game with such a strong team? Was it coaching strategy, pure talent, or a combination of both? I'm just curious.

I've never attacked Holland personally. I just don't think he was a very good basketball coach. Any remarks I made were strictly about basketball. I have NEVER attacked Slatten. I'm one of the few supporters he has on here. Read any of my posts. I've made a few comments about the current situation with the boys' team, but the current situation is pretty bad. If you ask me, Hess must be doing a pretty good job. The team only has one loss and is playing better than I have seen them play in a couple of years. Good players can sometimes make a coach look better than he really is. All the talent in the world, however, will get you nowhere without some direction. I'm not your Mom, but who's your Daddy?

JohnJacob...I could have probably worded that a little better. Sorry. I thought you were on my side, but I wasn't completely sure. The thing I like the most about these boards is the opportunity to express anonymous opinions. Some people use them for personal attacks. I don't agree with that, especially in the case of players. When I criticize, I try to do it to the team as a whole. I also do this with my praise, but I am more apt to give individual praise to a player or coach. I don't think anyone knows who I am, but I don't care if they do. I would have the same opinions if I were talking to them face-to-face. I have been told who a few people on the boards are. I don't know if I was given accurate information, and really don't care. I respect everyone's opinion. I just don't like to see things get personal. I got a little sarcastic with benchcoach a couple of posts ago, but he deserved that one.

White Co. is a bigger school system that Cannon Co. isn't it? Maybe he left for more money. Jimmy Maynord left Sparta's head football coaching position a few years ago to make more money as an assistant at Riverdale. Maybe he came to work for Whited to get the experience and exposure. Both Sparta's girls' and boys' programs were pretty high profile at that time. Maybe he just didn't like where he was and wanted a change. He is the only person who really knows. Why don't you ask him? I'm not Hess, by the way. I don't even know the guy. I just don't like to see him taking so much silly criticism when the team is winning. He's getting the job done, so why complain? If things suddenly start to go south, then have at it. Also...........JohnJacob, or whatever your username is, I don't see your REAL name on here either.

You just wasted 6 lines and about 2 minutes out of my appearantly pathetic life. Thanks! Why don't you worry about your life, and PLEASE let me worry about mine. OK? What do I want to do today, watch paint dry or watch a car rust? Decisions. Decisions. [Edited by pinkpanther on 12-28-02 2:58P]

The tears of laughter have dried up, so I'm going to try to type now. Hess lives in Cookeville, doesn't dress well enough, and doesn't mingle with the fans. You've convinced me. Where's that petition? I've got to sign it so we can get Hess outta here! You have just come up with the thinnest argument against a coach that I have ever heard. Congratulations! I thought the living in Cookeville thing was dumb, but good grief! Here comes the laughter again! Oh my sides hurt, they really hurt!

The question is, "Should coaches get on these boards and argue back and forth with fans?" It depends. If they're defending themselvs or their players, the answer is yes. If they're being positive and trying to create support for the team, the answer is yes. If they're just getting on here to argue with the rest of us, then it's no. Arguing with fans makes them look defensive. It makes it look like there might be more truth in what we're saying than there actually is. Unfortunately, a lot of what we fans say on here is negative. Unfortunately, there haven't been a lot of positives where the boys' basketball team is concerned this season. If coaches want to get into this, they need to stay positive. I get accused of being Slatten because I defend him. I'm not him. I just know him personally, and think he's both a good person and a good coach. That only gets you so far, though. I've tried to be very positive, but the Jackson Co. game has started to change my way of thinking. The team looks bad and the upcoming schedule isn't going to help that any. Once is an accident, twice is a trend, three times is a problem. We're in a trend right now. If it becomes a problem, something will have to be done. Everyone who reads these boards knows where I stand, and I hope it doesn't turn into a problem.

First of all, I never said Holland was stupid. I just said he couldn't coach. Second, I think Jolley was a very good coach. A better combination would have been Jolley as the head coach with Holland as his assistant. That would have put championship banners in our gym. Jolley was there for 2 reasons. 1. To keep Holland from screwing up his daughter's future 2. To help a young coach who didn't have a clue Jolley added experience to the bench. What had Holland done before he was handed the job? Nothing. He had coached the freshman team. Big deal. He had no big-time varsity coaching experience. He was a cheap, political hire. Other more prominent, more experienced coaches were interested in the job. The good-ole-boy system kicked in and took care of some of Sparta's priviledged few. Before anyone jumps on me, I know the same can be said for Slatten. Slatten had a much better resume than Holland did, though. I think Holland was a bad decision. Since he's quit, I doubt if anybody is begging him to get back into coaching. If you're looking for a coach who went as far as his talent could take him, Holland is your man. I guess that's why you seem to like him so much benchcoach.

I seem to have ruffled some feathers by saying Jackson Co. had a better team than Sparta. That's what I believe and no one can convince me otherwise. I'm from Sparta, but I still feel that way. If the two teams played 10 games, Jackson Co. would probably win 6 or 7 times. Sparta just plays them once this year (scrimmages don't count), so they got one of the 3 or 4 wins they could probably get. Now they don't have to worry about Jackson Co. anymore. I was trying to pay Sparta a compliment, but no one could see it. By saying it the way I did, I meant that Sparta went above and beyond what most people thought they were capable of. It's a testimony to just how great the team did. Both coaches and players did an excellent job. Once again, I say excellent job to all! [Edited by pinkpanther on 12-27-02 5:13P]

You have to give benchcoach credit for one thing. He stands by his beliefs. He won't give an inch on Hess, no matter how many facts we present him with.

Hey bar9251! You're on here too. Looks like there might be a little something missing in your life. A pot shouldn't be calling us kettles black.

ktown...I haven't seen "Goofy" get a technical yet this year. I've only missed 2 home games, so where are all these T's you're talking about coming from? I've only heard about him getting 1 technical at all. It sounds like you're just looking for something to complain about. You and benchcoach from the girls' board need to get together and have a gripe session. You can gripe about Slatten, then he can gripe about Hess. Maybe if you two complain to each other, the rest of us won't have to put up with it all the time. What's your problem with Slatten anyway? [Edited by pinkpanther on 12-22-02 10:11P]

OK. Sparta had the better team last night. Better on the scoreboard.

I think you're right. Shockley was the coach of the Jared team. Holland didn't take over until the 1992-93 season. Jared graduated in 1992. My apologies to Holland for that error. I still think he was a terrible coach, though. I still think Sparta was out-coached in Jared's senior year too. The talent was there to overcome what Shelbyville had. I think Sparta was just intimidated by the Shelbyville mystique.

A scrimmage is nothing more than a practice with a scoreboard. The object of practice isn't to win or lose, the object is to get better.

I'm as pro-Slatten as you get. I'm going to say one of my first negative things about him, though. During warm-ups last night, he was out on the floor with the boys. He was throwing the ball around during drills and things like that. I've never seen him doing that before. I thought that maybe he and his team had turned a corner. The game proved otherwise. It just doesn't look like the players are reponding to him. If this is true, something needs to change. I don't mean we need a new coach. I just mean that something needs to be done to get everyone on the same page. Sparta has the talent to win some games. Maybe it's time for a team meeting or something. A team doesn't belong to a coach. A coach is part of a team. If all the parts aren't working in unison, the team isn't going to be functioning at its best. Maybe Slatten needs to sit down and find out where his players are. If going back to square one will get things on the right track, then that's where they need to go.

I'll give you Hacker. After last night, I think she's the best player on the team. She just needs experience. Sunday might move on because of height. She needs a lot of work on fundamentals. She is improved from last year, and still has another year left to work. Lewis and King are too short to play college ball at their positions. They will get eaten up by taller girls at the next level. They're both really good players, especially Lewis. They will both have to do some growing, however, if they expect to move on. Sparta got outcoached in Ginger Jared's senior year. So what if Shelbyville had Woosley and Johnson? Holland was too worried about Woosley and let Johnson beat them. I would have backed my 5 players up on their other 4 and dared Woosley to beat us all by herself. She couldn't have done it. Jolley's junior team shouldn't have come down to missed free throws. That team was so good that they should have been blowing everybody away. I don't recall a lot about the Mitchell team other than they were highly-ranked for the whole season. Obviously, some other people saw something, or they wouldn't have been ranked so high. I was working out-of-town a lot during that time, so I had to rely on second hand information from the newspaper. My honest opinion is that Holland was a big-game choke artist. His teams always rolled through the season, but got tight when tournament time came around. You talk about Hess' bad decisions, Holland was the master of them. He was in the fortunate situation of inheriting a great team with a long stream of talent coming up. When that talent dried up, he left to sell real estate. Sound familiar? Holland was actually the originator of that career move.

With the exception of Sunday in the post, name one position where Sparta had a superior player to Jackson Co. Nowhere. Maybe my statement should have been that Jackson Co. clearly had better players. Better players should mean having a better team. That's why I said that Jackson Co. was the better team. The lead story on this website when I logged in was how Sparta had upset Jackson Co. I guess I'm not the only one who thought they were the better team. None of that matters, though. Sparta won. Coaching, heart, and determination got them the victory. The better team doesn't always win the game. Good job everyone! [Edited by pinkpanther on 12-22-02 6:05P]

Sparta hit a new low point for the season tonight. They got outplayed by a Jackson Co. team that wasn't even in their league. Get a rebound guys! I'm beginning to think you're right 85warrior. This team probably won't win as many games as last year's team. The 5 or 6 you've been saying might even be a stretch. Sorry to be so negative, but facts is facts.

Jackson Co. clearly had the better team. Sparta played an excellent, excellent game. Very good job Warriorettes and coaches!

Let me throw in my opinion on this subject. Holland had some spectacular talent on his teams. If he had been able to coach them, there would be at least 3 Girls' State Championship banners hanging in our gym right now. 1) Ginger Jared's senior year. 2) Kellie Jolley's junior year. 3) Candice Mitchell's senior year. Holland flat couldn't coach. I think Hess can coach. He doesn't have a single player right now with college-type talent. The team is deep with good players, but none of them are superstars. The team wins, though. Hess gets the most out of his players. If he had coached the teams that Holland had, those state championship banners I mentioned would probably be in our gym right now. I personally wish we still had Keith Short. He was the coach that built Sparta to it's glory, and the coach that could have kept us there. Holland just happened to be along for the ride, and was handed the keys when Short left for Riverdale. Hess gets a lot of bang for the buck. Everyone might not agree with his methods, but he gets the job done. [Edited by pinkpanther on 12-21-02 10:24P]

I might not make it on Friday, but I will definitely be at the Shootout on Saturday. Now I'm confused too. That post was directed at a missedit. He/She was going back and forth with somebody else and trying to figure out who each other was. It was something about did they speak to each other at a game or something. It sounded like they were trying to get together. Maybe I read it on another thread. I try to look at all the ones involving Sparta, boys or girls. It might have been on a girls' thread. I don't see missedit's posts on this one. I probably put my sarcastic remark in the wrong place. I do stupid things pretty often.

Hey thekeg55! Wake up! The game was last weekend. Sparta won.

Let's say I'm a basketball player. The guy across from me on the other team keeps beating me. Is that my coach's fault? No. It's mine. I need to either get better or get out of the way. It's my coach's job to help me get better. If Sparta is as good or better than all of these teams, why do they keep getting beat? A coach has to have his players in a position to win games. That's where they were against Livingston, but they blew it. I'm trying my best not to knock Sparta's players, but they're not getting it done. Games are won or lost on the floor, not on the bench. Livingston beat Sparta on the floor. Sparta beat Upperman on the floor. They were just on the wrong end of a lot of calls in that game. Sparta's team has looked well-prepared in every game I have seen. That's the coach's job. The team has played well for the most part. There have just been lapses. It was the start of the 3rd quarter against Upperman, and the last minute of the game against Livingston. Execution failed in both cases. Maybe Slatten didn't have the right players in the games to get the job done. The fault for the bad record is a combination of both coaches and players. Sadly, players can't be changed. Haley can't go out and bring in a whole new team. He can only bring in a new person to coach the same team. I think the results would be about the same. It does no good to argue back and forth about this. We're on different sides. We both just need to go out as often as we can to support the team, and let what happens happen.

I posted this on another thread, but I think it's appropriate on this one too. Sooner or later, the players on a team have got to be held accountable for something. Sparta had the Livingston game won. I was there. They were up by 4 with just over a minute left to play. They made 2 mental errors that cost them the game. There was a very questionable no-call by the refs in there, but those happen in every game. The boys blew it themselves tonight. I hate to say it, but it's true. A coach can't control anything once the players hit the floor. It's up to the players then. Livingston had a better team than Sparta. I think Slatten and Dotson had them well-prepared. The blame for this loss goes to the boys on the team. They played a great game, except for the last minute. They had the win, but let it slip away. I also said on that thread that bad teams usually cost coaches their jobs. If Slatten quits or loses his job, it won't be because he is a bad coach. It will be because he wasn't given the time, talent, or community support to get the program going again. In case people haven't noticed it, Sparta is in a rebuilding period right now. Any coach would be struggling with this team. A coach can't do everything. Players have to step up at some point. Sparta only has one player capable of stepping up right now. The team is young, however. Time and experience are going to make things better. I'm probably in the minority, but I don't want Slatten to be gone. He's a good guy and a good coach. Someone on this thread from Perry Co. said they would love to have him back. If the people of Sparta will be patient, eventually they will be begging him not to leave.