ronin

Sorry Spartan if I was incorrect. I was told Webb. Devilsden, I am not within 100 miles of being qualified to have anything to do with choosing a coach. That decision is in the proper hands right now. Mark Duff has my full support in this matter. I have supported him throughtout this whole mess. It even caused an argument between me and my son when I told him that he needed to believe that Mr. Duff would do the right thing. The parents should have nothing to do with this decision as it is Mark Duff who will have to supervise him. It would almost be a sort of poetic justice if those who were most vehement in calling for the resignation had to find someone better though. I had my opinions about what should be done but I tried to keep them to myself. Mr Duff was loyal to Coach Julian as long as he could be and I do admire that. I do not envy the position he now finds himself in this close to the season.

I know that there is a kid playing at Webb who was an awesome running back in middle school. He would have been a freshman last year. I also know that Webb is after the best prospect on this year's freshman team, a huge kid who shows a lot of promise and could potentially start as a freshman on this team. My son also told me that a few of his teammates tried to transfer and were unable to. Maybe Halls needs to reach out to the middle school leagues and get those coaches to help with the earlier development of players. When my son played in middle school the coach had 11 boys that played both ways and everybody else stood on the sideline. He did nothing to develop any depth and he got killed in the 4th quarter of every game because his boys were exhausted.

Maybe the coach did have a reason. I know that one of the players had been trying to get the kid to come out and play and that he was just recently successful in convincing the guy to come in. The way my son saw it was that coach didn't want to take the time to see if the kid was any good. I realize that the timing sucks on this move but during spring practice there were some issues that demonstrated the team had no cohesiveness and it appeared that the coach was unable to mold these kids into a team. I think that the reason it took this long after spring practice is that the principal put a lot of thought into the decision he was faced with. The principal is a former coach and understands quite well what challenges this program faces. I believe that he is acting in the best interests of the kids as he has demonstrated that in all his decisions, sports related or not. I am not saying that the principal is perfect, but I do believe that he is going to do what he thinks is right. Some people believe that this move was caused by disgruntled parents but I think that Mr. Duff is way too strong to let that be the deciding factor in this move. If he was going to cave in to the demands of the parents, the coach would have been gone at the end of the 0-10 season and wouldn't have had the chance to go 1-9 last year. I really do not care if my son plays football or not, that is his decision. In fact, I feel that his schoolwork would be better if he didn't play. That being said, I will support my son in whatever he chooses to do. I have no clue what they will do for a new coach but I support whatever decision Mr Duff comes up with. I am not sure about the abilities of the assistants to take over although there are a couple that my son thinks could do the job (whatever that is worth). I happen to like all the coaches, including Coach Julian, but I also feel that some kind of change was in order. Anyone who was even remotely involved with this program could easily see that there were many challenges that needed to be overcome to make this a TEAM. I am under no delusions that this team should be a contender for the state championship, but at the same time, I know that they could do much better than their record shows. I would also like to say that what I post on this board is just the same as everyone else, it is my opinion. Opinions are like butts, everyone has one, they are all entitled to one, and they all stink. Anyone can choose to agree or not and I will do the same.

Stan, if your team was 0-19 in the last 2 years and you had 45 players at a school of 1600 students, would you turn away a kid that wanted to join your team? (Exhibit

Oh and one more thing. I do know that last week an upcoming junior went in to the workout and wanted to join the team and the coach was not receptive to the idea. The kid had played when he was younger but hadn't played in 2 years. When your team is in the shape of this one, you put the pads on anybody who wants to play and say, "show me what you got." His reluctance to bring in a new player, when you only have about 45 varsity and JV players,even if he will be a junior, is ridiculous.

I have a son on the team. This is not about "just win baby." This is about the long term viability of this program. There will be 22 seniors on this years team. There will be 10 juniors. There will be about 13 sophomores. In a school this size, these numbers are not going to get it done. I will not go into internal issues except to say that there has been no blatant wrongdoing on the part of Coach Julian. It is just a basic fact that, when a program is going in the direction of this one, a change has to be made. I do not dislike the coach. He just isn't getting it done and it is time to make a change. I personally think that this should have been done after the 0-10 season the year before last. Last season just confirmed my opinion.