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[i am from Kingston originally and graduated in 1972, did attend college, do have a BA degree, have coached a Chinese boys high school basketball team internationally that played in championship games, and was Comissioner of a basketball league in the Philippines that had 32 high school teams and 15 college teams participating in it when I returned to America after almost 20 years living in that beautiful place.

 

I didn't say they did it for the money. But, you do have to take a look at yourself as a coach. If you really love the kids and the school, then step aside if you are not getting the job done. Like the fellow from Dallas, I so remember the Austin Clark and MIke Snow teams. I remember John Skidmore and Wayne Everett. At the high school age, a big part of coaching is teaching. John Wooden even started out without even using a ball on the practice court to instill the basics in the players mind.

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[i am from Kingston originally and graduated in 1972, did attend college, do have a BA degree, have coached a Chinese boys high school basketball team internationally that played in championship games, and was Comissioner of a basketball league in the Philippines that had 32 high school teams and 15 college teams participating in it when I returned to America after almost 20 years living in that beautiful place.

 

I didn't say they did it for the money. But, you do have to take a look at yourself as a coach. If you really love the kids and the school, then step aside if you are not getting the job done. Like the fellow from Dallas, I so remember the Austin Clark and MIke Snow teams. I remember John Skidmore and Wayne Everett. At the high school age, a big part of coaching is teaching. John Wooden even started out without even using a ball on the practice court to instill the basics in the players mind.

 

Your example of Austin Clark and Mike Snow is not a very good one. Austin Clark started at UT and Mike Snow played for the university of TN Chattanooga, do u know when the last time a player from Kingston went D-1, if you recall let me know. Those teams in the 60's and 70's had so much talent, Kingston was good in every sport, Kids are different, teachers are different and the community is different. Plemons works hard at coaching he is just in his second year, this team has 1 senior and 2 juniors. Since you have so much experience you need to come and watch this team play and judge for yourself, better yet come up and put an application in, maybe with your experience they would be undefeated.

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I agree that the coaches dont do it for the money. It takes a lot of time to do what they do. But, the coaches do have to take responsibility for their team losing, all good coaches do. The depth of a team falls right back on the athletic program for not getting students interested in participating in athletics. One question though does Roane Co. have a 4th block for athletics. Ex. Varsity Sports

 

Are you a coach? I think coaches should take some of the responsibility but not all of it, just like when you win, there is one thing you cant do is make someone have talent, but you can make talent better, if this team wins 15 games next year the athletic department or the coach is not even an issue, and yes Kingston does have a sixth period athletics. It's a Coaches responsibility to put kids in the best situation to be successful on and off the court, cant make kids participate; 20 years ago maybe but not today , of course if you are a coach and are around high school kids then you already know that.

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Are you a coach? I think coaches should take some of the responsibility but not all of it, just like when you win, there is one thing you cant do is make someone have talent, but you can make talent better, if this team wins 15 games next year the athletic department or the coach is not even an issue, and yes Kingston does have a sixth period athletics. It's a Coaches responsibility to put kids in the best situation to be successful on and off the court, cant make kids participate; 20 years ago maybe but not today , of course if you are a coach and are around high school kids then you already know that.

 

 

 

This is just fodder for the conversation, but it's the Jimmy and Joes not the X's and O's. Furthermore, you can't turn a turd into gold. For example, are some of you suggesting on this message board that A.E. has great coaching?! They probably have, year in and year out, the most talented group of athletes in East TN yet sometimes they cannot even make it out of their Region. When they do make it out of their Region and past the Sub-State game they end up getting beat by a team at State that has no business beating them. In fact, with all that talent, when is the last time they have won a State title? You would think with all that talent they would carry a gold ball home once every 5-6 yrs. easy. The coaches there just roll the ball out on the court and let their kids play and a lot of the time they make the State Tourney on pure talent alone. Give Plemons a break and realize that talent around Roane Co. is not even close to what it used to be.

 

I will say this, coaching can make terrible players bad, bad players decent, decent players good, and good players great, but that is if you are working with motivated kids that want to put in the time and effort off the court to make themselves better. Coaches can try and motivate and talk till they are blue in the face, but it is up to the individuals to make the sacrifices necessary to become better ball players. Remember, this generation of kids have so many gadgets to keep them inside and on their duff that they rarely get out and work at anything (school work, sports, etc...). Basically, from all this rambling what I am trying to say is you need SOME TALENT to win games and coaches can't step out on the court and play for them.

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Hmm, interesting conversation. Are you one of the Kingston coaches or in the Athletic Department? Sounds very defensive. Talented players don't necessarily make good coaches either. From all I have read on here the past two days, you are basically saying there are no talented basketball players on the team at all. With reference to Clark and Snow, actually they are my cousins. Ever have BBQ across the street from the football field before the game?

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Hmm, interesting conversation. Are you one of the Kingston coaches or in the Athletic Department? Sounds very defensive. Talented players don't necessarily make good coaches either. From all I have read on here the past two days, you are basically saying there are no talented basketball players on the team at all. With reference to Clark and Snow, actually they are my cousins. Ever have BBQ across the street from the football field before the game?

 

You are finally getting the picture no talent on the team.

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Hmm, interesting conversation. Are you one of the Kingston coaches or in the Athletic Department? Sounds very defensive. Talented players don't necessarily make good coaches either. From all I have read on here the past two days, you are basically saying there are no talented basketball players on the team at all. With reference to Clark and Snow, actually they are my cousins. Ever have BBQ across the street from the football field before the game?

 

Have you seen this team play? If you haven't I suggest you go watch them. They play at home Friday night, a man with your basketball experience should be able to recognize if this team has talent or not.

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Hmm, interesting conversation. Are you one of the Kingston coaches or in the Athletic Department? Sounds very defensive. Talented players don't necessarily make good coaches either. From all I have read on here the past two days, you are basically saying there are no talented basketball players on the team at all. With reference to Clark and Snow, actually they are my cousins. Ever have BBQ across the street from the football field before the game?

 

 

First off, I have no ties to Kingston athletics except for the fact that I grew up in Roane Co, but I never attended Kingston High School. I just saw this posting and wanted to throw my two cents into the conversation because I grew up in the area and I knew Stephen Plemons as a person and played against him as a basketball player. I have seen the Kingston basketball team play a couple of times this past summer at summer camp and I am not saying they do not have a talented kid or two (maybe), but let's face it to be 0 and whatever means you are not working with a whole lot and Plemons is not working with a whole lot. Yes, having talent doesn't guarntee a ton of victories, but it certainly helps.

I'll use your argument for talent and how it does not necessarily guarntee high achievements. Take Harriman High with Coach Pickell, who by the way is being inducted into the high school Hall of Fame, and the talent he had at Harriman for YRS. There is absolutely no way he should not have been to the state tournament more than he did take Harriman over the 30 + yrs. he coached (2-3 times?). He did win a State title in 95 with an extremely talented team (should have been to state tournament with that team at least 3 times and not once), but there were some teams before that that were probably even more talented and never made it out of the District or Region. I will say this about Coach Pickell and that is he was and is an excellent person personally and I do not mean any of this in a derogatory way because I did play for him. I just did not think he was a very innovative coach as far as X's and O's and he was not a good disciplinarian with the kids he had.

Once again, my point is that you cannot make something out of absolutely nothing! You probably should expect a win or two though, but I would say, with my experience with kids, that they have probably cashed it in as far as the season goes.

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From an outsiders view point, he's in a pretty tough district with Catholic, AC, Loudon and Stone Memorial. This year his only realistic shot was to beat either CAK or Scott CO. Last year he really only had 3 players and they were seniors. The talent's not great and young but it is certainly not that far below CAK and Scott. They appear to work very hard but are undermanned against the other teams in the district. Coaching won't solve that problem. I haven't looked at their non-district games but how would they match up with Midway, Coalfield, Oakdale etc.? With such an inexperienced team shouldn't you try to soften the schedule a bit? Don't hang the coach out to dry if the players haven't made a commitment to improve on their own. How/what kind of feeder system is in place?

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From an outsiders view point, he's in a pretty tough district with Catholic, AC, Loudon and Stone Memorial. This year his only realistic shot was to beat either CAK or Scott CO. Last year he really only had 3 players and they were seniors. The talent's not great and young but it is certainly not that far below CAK and Scott. They appear to work very hard but are undermanned against the other teams in the district. Coaching won't solve that problem. I haven't looked at their non-district games but how would they match up with Midway, Coalfield, Oakdale etc.? With such an inexperienced team shouldn't you try to soften the schedule a bit? Don't hang the coach out to dry if the players haven't made a commitment to improve on their own. How/what kind of feeder system is in place?

 

 

My only question would be, are they fundamental? That is a direct effect of coaching. My understanding is that while they are undertalented, they also are limited fundamentally.

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My only question would be, are they fundamental? That is a direct effect of coaching. My understanding is that while they are undertalented, they also are limited fundamentally.

 

Of course they are limited fundamentally. But that is not always a effect of coaching, sometimes; but not always. You can teach any kid fundamentals but usually the ones that are more athletic and talented catch on quicker and are better at boxing out or a bounce pass, my point is if your playing against a team with more talent and just as fundamentally sound; they're gonna win against the team less talented. Kingston's problem is they don't have depth and they cannot score, they are holding opponents to 45 to 55 points, which is not bad, but only scoring 30 to 35, hard to win ballgames scoring that many points.

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I would like to attend the game, but since I live in Washington state now it is a bit difficult to get to Friday's game. By the way, the players read Coach T as well so they see all the no talent comments (How do you think I knew about CoachT.com?). Maybe the talent is not as great as in past years, but do not demoralize the players as the only reason. That just gives them more of a reason not to turn out, especially if the coaches and community do not believe in them. Don't be surprised if some of the players do not turn out next even though they are on the team this year. Kingston is a very difficult place to play in because expectations are so high. We are used to winning in pretty much every sport. I know Coach Plemons father and know that he comes from a very good family and upbringing. I did see the team play under Greg Sitzler and some of the same boys played during that time. Motivation is a key, so I if the coaches and the players have no motivation then Kingston is in for a long dry spell in basketball and will go winless this year.

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