Monday, March 7, 2005
Why it’s Time to Fire John Chaney
Is Temple waiting for the other shoe to drop? Is there more to this story? Is it not enough that John Chaney enlisted one of his players in an enforcer type role that ended John Bryant's career prematurely? Does he have to do something else to get fired?
John Chaney is currently sitting out the remainder of the season as the school ponders his eventual fate. Chaney's latest escapade into the unexplainable involved sending Nehemiah Ingram late into vs. St. Joseph's to "send a message."
Ingram did his best to appease his coach. Ingram matched his season average of four minutes a game, but well surpassed his fouls per game average by reaching the maximum allotment in the 240 seconds he graced the court. And one of Ingram's fouls sent Bryant to the deck so hard that he separated his shoulder, giving the St. Joe's senior a lasting memory of his final game. Message received.
Chaney's would later say he felt St. Joe's was setting too many illegal screens, and that is what led to his ultimatum for Ingram. Chaney sent in his self-described "goon" to let St. Joe's know that his days of over-the-top antics, harking back to his memorable tirade of threatening John Calipari's life, are not that far behind him.
I'm not real sure what the difference is between Chaney and Bob Knight, other than Knight chokes his own players while Chaney outsources. That and Knight attempts to be funny at press conferences, while Chaney provides more of the unintended hilarious moments.
Mitch Albom recently attacked Chaney not just for his recent actions, but also his offensive language. On a related note, Representative Joe Barton from Texas wishes to see broadcast decency rules apply to cable television as well as satellite radio, ensuring offensive language can't simply escape the FCC's domain by moving to a pay environment.
Have I been living in a cave, or is there some plague in our society that has to do with foul language? Should everyone curse all the time? Probably not, but I can't believe that it leads to irreparable harm. What I do know is that Chaney's potty mouth has as little to do with coaching as the government should have to do with legislating what people pay to watch and listen to.
Chaney got angry, but instead of using the available forum to protest, he decided to take actions into his own hands, sort of. Instead of using his own hands, he did the next best thing, and used one of his players.
Many columns have come out in defense of Chaney, asking us to evaluate his whole career and not this one uncharacteristic act. Unfortunately, his lifetime of good work cannot make up for his unbelievably poor decision-making. Unlike the Senate, as Ted Kennedy, AKA the original Mayor Quimby has proved (thank you Jon Stewart), there are some crimes in college basketball so reprehensible that keeping your job is not an option.
The idea of a coach, a leader, is to remain calm in tense moments, not act like a petulant child who will take his ball home with him if he doesn't get to play. Sending a kid out with the secondary intent to play basketball, ranking behind the express intent of "sending a message," is exactly the opposite.
The coach has to be the facilitator, not the instigator. Temple needs to let everyone know that this type of thug behavior, instilled from the coach, is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. And if John Chaney were the man his supporters claim him to be, he wouldn't put his university in this position. He would have already tendered his resignation.