The other side of my "dismissal"

[bhs91]

As a current coach on the Bartlett staff, I would like to respond to Ben's post a couple of week's ago and to some of the responses that followed. While many might feel it unprofessional to respond, I can not let some of the untruth's go down as fact. We know that kids make mistakes and make irrational decisions. The situation that occurred was not the first of its kind it just happened to finally be the last. The newspaper article was not by Coach Smith's choice. The paper called him and they were going to write about the situation regardless. Why was the typical "violation of team rules" statement not given? Because Coach Smith did not want people to read into the situation that Ben must have been drinking or doing drugs. Ben to our knowledge has never participated in those things and we did not think it fair for people to speculate that those were factors into his dismissal from the team. The paper could have had a better headline than "Bartlett center thrown off team" but we had no control over that.

 

The fact that Ben was forced to play on a stress fracture is non-sense. He complained of pain and our trainer looked at it, talked to Ben and then assessed the situation as a sore foot and that as long as Ben could withstand the pain then he could play. During a scrimmage, the pain intensified and that evening Ben had x-rays taken and the stress fractured appeared. From this point on, Ben was in a cast and missed the first semester. It is just discouraging to hear the story distorted for the sole purpose of defaming Coach Smith.

 

I am also a former player of Coach Smith's. He is as great a person as he is a coach. He demands excellence and will settle for no less. It was not always fun to play for him, but I grew to appreciate why he was so demanding when I got into college. Most players do not appreciate how much he truly does care for them. Ben though, should. When Ben was struggling with problems a couple of years ago, Coach Smith would drive 20 minutes on Sunday morning to pick him up and take him to church. He counseled him as a father would a son. He opened up his family and home to help him. For the comment to be made by Ben that "The truth is I didn't see any sign that Coach Smith cared about his players but that he cared about winning instead" is just ridiculous. A person only concerned with winning would not have given a rip about his personal life.

 

Most people on here were able to read Ben's statements and make an accurate assessment about Ben's attitude and can see where his individual attitude does not fit into the team mold. Every attempt was made to work with Ben because of his God given abilities. When a student has the potential to have their college paid for, coaches are more likely to make sure that those players know what they are giving up when they decide to walk away from the game. We wish Ben well and hope that he does not later in life regret what he gave up.

Best wishes Ben,

 

Coach Dykes

[Edited by bhs91 on 11-8-02 10:44A]

[Edited by bhs91 on 11-8-02 10:45A]

 

[dynasty03]

Just as the thread is dying down and people are forgetting about it you come and make another post. Speculations are just that, speculations. Who cares if they are right or not. And by the way people were bashing Ben, did you think that all people believed him. Man, here we go again with this thread..........................