MBA

[taco]

Noticing that, after all that I wrote, you attack the most truthful portion of it all under a banner of "well only cheaters every bring up such a thing" only solidifies my position that you are so truly immature and unhappy to the point that nothing will ever satisfy you in regards to this situation. You do not like MBA, that much is certain. You may not like what you think it stands for (which is more than likely not what it actually stands for). You may not like its people. But the idea that you did not attack (i) my statement on what constitutes real proof, (ii) Barton Simmons' credibility, (iii) James Kay's credibility, (iv) the immaturity and cowardice on these boards, but instead go after my quote that football is not important at all in the pantheon of important stuff in life just concretes the idea that you are simply operating from a position of immaturity, wanting to provide some sort of witty, sarcastic retort for everyone (you hope) to read, without ever actually thinking it through as to what you are saying.

 

 

I won the battle when all you had left as a response is an attack on the messenger. That is perfectly fine and expected. Head up arrogant backside syndome is expected when dealing with such "gentlemen."

 

As proof, that you will provide in response to this post, of your smallness and defeat, I will allow you the honor of the last word in our exchange. Small, defeated men need that. Make it count.

 

Lesson over.

[Florabama]

well said.

 

I am not a fan of Coach McGugin, however, he was not fired at FRA. He left on his own accord for what was undoubtedly a better opportunity.

[deadaim]

TSSAA cleared MBA today without penalty. Investigation is closed.

[TheBigRedDog]

TSSAA cleared MBA today without penalty. Investigation is closed.

 

Tennessean article

[oblong]

Tennessean article

McGugin supporters, I'm sorry, but he sounds like he has a screw loose. Still considers himself the head coach?!

[hoosierdad]

McGugin supporters, I'm sorry, but he sounds like he has a screw loose. Still considers himself the head coach?!

 

Is Coach M still the coach? If not, why does he still state that he is? Also, why was he let go if MBA did nothing wrong? I think this question is the question that begs to be answered. Are there other skeletons in the closet? I don't know (???) but this whole case has been handled wrong and this is not the first time something like this has been handled like this.

 

I will fall back to other posters, are there more people that need to go? The hill is a sea of bullets and those on the hill better keep their head ducked so not to get hit.

 

There has to be more to this story. Sorry to see this; however, the hill must get its house in order. Is it legal or not? Is this the only violation? Only time will tell.

 

Where is Mr. Drake?

 

I personally hate to see this happen to MBA; however, the hill needs to get its house in order.

Edited April 19, 2011 by hoosierdad

[justagame1]

Why is it that MBA, who has so little regard for schools like Ensworth and BA and all they represent, is so bothered and rattled by them? Why, when challenged, does MBA point the finger elsewhere, deflect the blame and diminish the challengers? With a long history of MBA alumni in my family, dating back to the Wallace School, each and every one is embarrassed by MBA's NEED to put "gentleman, scholar, athlete" on every conceivable surface; its NEED to instruct and lecture us all with the lists of the accomplishments of its students ad nauseam; its NEED to dismiss and diminish all those who did not attend the school. Who is MBA trying to convince? Thou dost protest too much! The defensive posture of the school begins at the top and the current environment seems toxic and dysfunctional.

 

Mr. Gioia (or Paranoia Gioia as some call him) is a little man who NEEDS to win at all costs. One of my children was taught by a teacher who worked under Goia at Darlington. He said that Mr. Gioia was a micro-manager, a control freak. When questioned or challenged, he became vengeful and punitive. He spoke from both sides of his mouth and was prone to embellish and manipulate. I have heard the same thing from some members of the MBA community and from those who have left the school. It is in this climate that you have a young coach who also feels the need to win at all costs. This is not about a Bowers or Flatt culture. This is MBA's culture.

 

Daniel McGugin was raised with the prospect that he would be the coach at MBA and ultimately retire as the Vanderbilt coach. In his family, performance is paramount and MBA is everything so the expectations and pressure have been high for him and are now being played out under the lights and under the glare of Nashville's powerful each week. Rest assured that this incident is not the first. Several schools have informed the headmaster of numerous irregularities prior to this, instead of going to the TSSAA. Sadly, both the headmaster and the coach deflected and blamed when presented with facts, and the coach manipulated the facts to the point of not being truthful. To be honest, the firing might be the best thing that could happen to Daniel. He needs support as well as some help.

 

As for Mr. Simmons, I am stunned by his arrogance for such a young and "stand-up" man. In his effort to be supportive of his family, he trashes Mr. Wilson and his money largesse. It is obvious that if Daniel's reputation is tarnished, then Mr. Simmons fears that his own reputation and that of his family will be tarnished - and that is sad. There is real desperation here. It is apparent that Simmons has a boulder on his shoulder and has much to learn.

 

I remembering hearing a former star student/athlete at MBA reflect on his time there. "The definition of success that I learned while at MBA was about titles, position, power and production. It was only when I reached forty that I understood that the measure of a man's success is much more than being #1 at everything." MBA needs to examine itself from the inside out and it should start with the top. If Mr. Goia was willing to out several Board members, he is either trying to protect himself or he knows he is on his way out. Either way, if true, his actions are incorrigible and inconceivable but rather typical.

 

MBA and its family needs to understand that the truth does not have two sides.

 

Dear ADD1950. I want to thank you for your thoughtful response. I am an MBA graduate. Although I have lived away from Nashville for quite some time, I try to keep abreast of what is going on in the MBA community and the world of Tennessee interscholastic athletics. I think that you have have spoken for many in commenting on both the internal malaise that has been really growing within MBA for many years and how this particular culture could so easily bring out these qualities in a young man who was brought up in the sort of environment that you mentioned.

 

I really appreciate the fact that you remind us that we should be sympathetic of the position that McGugin has found himself in, even if these problems were largely created by him. But of course, very few of us know exactly what has happened. I would guess that over the next few months we are going to hear all sorts of spin (lets all hope not in court) and the vast majority of us are not going to know what to believe. Regardless of all the hairsplitting that takes place, however, I think that it is important to remember what got us here in the first place and that is high school sports, especially football, have taken on a significance that displays how our culture's values have become so fundamentally out of whack in some important ways. While MBA has demonstrated it, I think it is certainly pervasive. The fact of the matter is that maybe one out of every 400 MBA players will ever play in the NFL, and very few will get any financial aid for football. While high school sports CAN teach valuable lessons, I think that most of use who have come out of good educational institutions would agree that it was the skills in the classroom that best prepared us for the career paths that we have chosen. Why is it then that grown men drool over these young men playing this sport and allow its influence to be so out of proportion with its overall longterm impact on the lives of young men? Frankly, it stinks of grown men trying to live out their days vicariously through these young men whose lives are probably negatively influenced by the said grown men having such a distorted sense of what is important in education and in many cases life. As you said, winning is not all of life.

 

I think that there is something else that we need to remember in regard to this latter point and that is that anyone who knows McGugin knows that winning matters above all else to him. People who played with him or watched him play youth sports and later at MBA know this very well. I can claim now knowledge about what actually did happen in this recently publicized incident that has got so much attention. I do know what so many others have said in this forum and that is that McGugin does not treat other people well. Yes, he has known how to use connections and influence and calculated social graces to work his way into the positions that he always believed that he was entitled to, but I have heard much over the years about how he demeans, humiliates, and bullies those below him and undercuts those that he believes are standing in front of him. McGugin and his supporters would probably call players who accuse him of bullying as being winers or babies. They would probably label adults who criticized him for such behavior as losers. It is precisely a mentality of winning above all else that leads to behavior such as this and I suspect this compounded with a culture (MBA, Tennessee interscholastic athletics, the United States of America) that has come to emphasize "winning" a bit excessively led to this current state of affairs. I sincerely hope that McGugin grows as a person through this experience and will come to treat people better than what seems to have been typical of him in the opinions of so many. As you said AD1950, it might be the best thing that ever happened to him. But I do hope that he never coaches again, or at least not until he has grown a bit.

 

I believe that a good high school coach is one that encourages young men to do their best, to aspire to championships, but most importantly to help young men find an inherent dignity within themselves and build self-esteem. I am sure that some of McGugin's players (especially the more talented ones) will defend him, but I have heard too much from those close to the programs that he has been associated with to believe that he is the type of person who could best shape young men. This is the most important aspect of high school sports....PERIOD!!! I hope that this can become again the foundation of football at MBA in the proud tradition of Tommy Owen. I would like to think that MBA could become a leader in this regard and set an example that others would aspire to follow. But we have a long ways to go at present.

 

Again AD1950, thank you for your critical, poignant, and sympathetic comments.

Edited April 19, 2011 by justagame1

[shakinthefat]

TSSAA clears MBA for self-reporting. Do you think that with the legal cost they rung up while fighting BA years ago, that they would rather not punish a private school?

TSSAA is run by public school officials, they do not want to regulate private schools.

Private Schools should secede from the TSSAA, stop supporting the TSSAA and form the Private School Athletic Association (PSAA). That would be about 300 schools that would now not have to deal with the inept TSSAA.

[hoosierdad]

Dear ADD1950. I want to thank you for your thoughtful response. I am an MBA graduate. Although I have lived away from Nashville for quite some time, I try to keep abreast of what is going on in the MBA community and the world of Tennessee interscholastic athletics. Fortunately, I have many close friends still connected with the MBA community and the broader world of Tennessee high school sports that have allowed me to do so. I think that you have have spoken for many in commenting on both the internal malaise that has been really growing within MBA for many years and how this particular culture could so easily bring out these qualities in a young man who was brought up in the sort of environment that you mentioned.

 

I really appreciate the fact that you remind us that we should be sympathetic of the position that McGugin has found himself in, even if these problems were largely created by him. But of course, very few of us know exactly what has happened. I would guess that over the next few months we are going to hear all sorts of spin (lets all hope not in court) and the vast majority of us are not going to know what to believe. Regardless of all the hairsplitting that takes place, however, I think that it is important to remember what got us here in the first place and that is high school sports, especially football, have taken on a significance that displays how our culture's values have become out so fundamentally out of whack in some ways. The fact of the matter is that maybe one out of every 400 MBA players will ever play in the NFL, and very few will get any financial aid for football. While high school sports CAN teach valuable lessons, I think that most of use who have come out of good educational institutions would agree that it was the skills in the classroom that best prepared us for the career paths that we have chosen. Why is it then that grown men drool over these young men playing this sport and make its influence so out of proportion with its overall influence on the lives of young men? Frankly, it stinks of a lot of old (and some fairly young) men trying to live out their days vicariously through these young men whose lives are probably negatively influenced by the grown men having such a distorted sense of what is important in education and in many cases life. As you said, winning is not all of life.

 

I think that there is something else that we need to remember in regard to this latter point and that is that anyone who knows McGugin knows that winning matters above all else to him. People who played with him or watched him play youth sports and later at MBA know this very well. I am not going to claim knowledge about what actually did happen in this one incident that has got so much attention or what happened during the four years of McGugin's tenure. I do know what so many others have said in this forum and that is that McGugin does not treat other people well. Yes, he has known how to use connections and influence and calculated social graces to work his way into the positions that he always believed that he was entitled to, but I have heard much over the years about how he demeans, humiliates, and bullies those below him and undercuts those that he believes are standing in front of him. McGugin and his supporters would probably call players who accuse him of bullying as being winers or babies. They would probably criticize adults who criticized him for such behavior as losers. It is precisely a mentality of winning above all else that leads to behavior such as this and I suspect this compounded with a culture that has come to emphasize "winning" a bit excessively led to this current state of affairs. I sincerely hope that McGugin grows as a person through this experience and will come to treat people better than what seems to have been typical of him in the opinions of so many. As you said AD1950, it might be the best thing that ever happened to him. But I do hope that he never coaches again, or at least not until he has grown a bit.

 

I believe that a good high school coach is one that encourages young men to do their best, to aspire to championships, but most importantly to help young men find an inherent dignity within themselves and build self-esteem. I am sure that some of McGugin's players (especially the more talented ones) will defend him, but I have heard too much from those close to the programs that he has been associated with to believe that he is successful on the last of these points--the one that I hope can become again the foundation of football at MBA in the proud tradition of Tommy Owen. I would like to think that MBA could become a leader in this regard and set an example that others would aspire to follow. But we have a long ways to go at present.

 

Again AD1950, thank you for your critical, poignant, and sympathetic comments.

 

 

Well said. I am sure Coach O would be proud of your post and want nothing more than integrity for the program. It was when Coach O and Coach B were on the hill that MBA stood for integrity.

 

We can only hope it will return.

[deadaim]

Well said. I am sure Coach O would be proud of your post and want nothing more than integrity for the program. It was when Coach O and Coach B were on the hill that MBA stood for integrity.

 

We can only hope it will return.

Integrity rests on the foundation of truth.

Nobody seems interested in inquiring as to how a cashiers check in an unmarked/no postage envelope with forwarding instructions on it was placed in the head coach's faculty mailbox.

[ADD1950]

Again AD1950, thank you for your critical, poignant, and sympathetic comments.

 

Thank you, justagame1.

 

As you have read, the TSSAA has not charged MBA with anything because...they self-reported and they fired their coach. It shows they are serious, Childress says. Personally, I think that MBA would have been better off if there had been some sort of reprimand. Being forced to shine a big light on the overall environment of the school would be advantageous in the long-term. There will be a group that will continue to support McGugin because of this verdict and will blame the Board of Trust. However, there simply is more to this story that validates the dismissal of McGugin. Let's just say that there is a pattern of fabrications that are and were disconcerting.

 

Additionally, it would be helpful if Daniel was forced to examine his behavior and acknowledge it. Trust me, he has teetered on the edge of impropriety time and time again. The TSSAA knows this and feels it necessary that he is gone. Apparently, Daniel's father and father-in-law, both attorneys, are not taking this lying down. But as you know, Daniel has never had to accept consequences and has always had someone interceding. I remember well the boys (Daniel and his twin brother Bill) playing tennis- John McEnroe had nothing on them! It is really quite sad.

 

You are so right about grown men living vicariously through these boys. I remember as many as sixty fathers at most MBA lower school football practices not too long ago- each and every one licking their chops at the future potential. Many had played for the Big Red and the others wished they had. Their presence was more than supporting their sons. There is parity throughout Division II and MBA struggles with that. Today, losing is not an acceptable option at MBA unless the school can minimize or mock its opponents to validate itself. Indeed, Coach Owen would have been disappointed with the loss of what's important.

[retiredtothebleachers]

A private school cheating is not so unbelievable. Its been going on for decades. Its sad, but it happens. What is more unbelievable is that they got caught and now all those who regularly stated "prove it"... well, here you go.

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. It happens all over with privates.

 

The sad part is that Bernard wont have the backbone to have TSSAA do anything about this MBA fiasco. He will say they handled it internally and TSSAA is satisfied with that.

 

There was recently a case involving illegal "tuition forgiveness" involving a BGA athlete that just recently transfered to a public school. It was an effort to get the sthlete to stay and they threatened his eligibility. Benard knows about it, knows they illegally forgave the student's tuition. He did nothing.

 

 

There is egg on MBA's face, but that will be the end of it.

 

I hate to say "I told you so," but I will for giggles. Gutless TSSAA. Unchecked and uncontrolled cheating will continue.