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The Forum has reported on the content of the text message(s) that apparently cost a long-time Fargo high school baseball coach his job:

“We are two months into open gyms and obviously all of you are satisfied with last year’s title,” the message reads. “We are the team that will have a target on our backs. We are the team that everyone throws their ace against. We are the team everyone wants to beat this year. I am sick of stupid excuses to not come to open gym. … If you want to be an athlete commit to it. One hour a week is not too much to ask if you want to be an athlete.

“If you make an excuse not to come then you are telling me what kind of athlete you are. I cannot require you to come but I thought I would have a group excited to try and defend a title. Not to make excuses and not care. Some of you are not even in a sport right now, which is even more pathetic. … I will not send out another message like this, but some of you may be in for a rude awakening when the season comes and you are not in the lineup due to a younger player that puts in the time.”

Are we honestly at the point where motivation of players by coaches is a terminable offense? I know a lot of people pi$$ and moan about what they perceive to be a needlessly elevated importance placed on sports, but come on.

Does anybody here - and especially current/former athletes - see anything wrong with what this coach did?

DISCLAIMER: There is often more to the story, and I'm not saying that isn't the case here, but the media reports thus far have been absolutely silent on anything other than the above-quoted text(s) and the reaction of the parents of one student.

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The Forum has reported on the content of the text message(s) that apparently cost a long-time Fargo high school baseball coach his job:

“We are two months into open gyms and obviously all of you are satisfied with last year’s title,” the message reads. “We are the team that will have a target on our backs. We are the team that everyone throws their ace against. We are the team everyone wants to beat this year. I am sick of stupid excuses to not come to open gym. … If you want to be an athlete commit to it. One hour a week is not too much to ask if you want to be an athlete.

“If you make an excuse not to come then you are telling me what kind of athlete you are. I cannot require you to come but I thought I would have a group excited to try and defend a title. Not to make excuses and not care. Some of you are not even in a sport right now, which is even more pathetic. … I will not send out another message like this, but some of you may be in for a rude awakening when the season comes and you are not in the lineup due to a younger player that puts in the time.”

Are we honestly at the point where motivation of players by coaches is a terminable offense? I know a lot of people pi$$ and moan about what they perceive to be a needlessly elevated importance placed on sports, but come on.

Does anybody here - and especially current/former athletes - see anything wrong with what this coach did?

DISCLAIMER: There is often more to the story, and I'm not saying that isn't the case here, but the media reports thus far have been absolutely silent on anything other than the above-quoted text(s) and the reaction of the parents of one student.

It's a sad state of affairs when a coach loses a job over one parent's complaint like this. From what is reported the coach had no chance to address the issue, he was just told he was done. We're becoming soft, and that's my way of putting it nicely.

Shanley baseball coach says contract not renewed due to complaint about text message

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The Forum has reported on the content of the text message(s) that apparently cost a long-time Fargo high school baseball coach his job:

“We are two months into open gyms and obviously all of you are satisfied with last year’s title,” the message reads. “We are the team that will have a target on our backs. We are the team that everyone throws their ace against. We are the team everyone wants to beat this year. I am sick of stupid excuses to not come to open gym. … If you want to be an athlete commit to it. One hour a week is not too much to ask if you want to be an athlete.

“If you make an excuse not to come then you are telling me what kind of athlete you are. I cannot require you to come but I thought I would have a group excited to try and defend a title. Not to make excuses and not care. Some of you are not even in a sport right now, which is even more pathetic. … I will not send out another message like this, but some of you may be in for a rude awakening when the season comes and you are not in the lineup due to a younger player that puts in the time.”

Are we honestly at the point where motivation of players by coaches is a terminable offense? I know a lot of people pi$$ and moan about what they perceive to be a needlessly elevated importance placed on sports, but come on.

Does anybody here - and especially current/former athletes - see anything wrong with what this coach did?

DISCLAIMER: There is often more to the story, and I'm not saying that isn't the case here, but the media reports thus far have been absolutely silent on anything other than the above-quoted text(s) and the reaction of the parents of one student.

In 7th grade I missed a practice (and school) that day for being sick, the game we had that week I never played because I missed a practice, I was so pissed, but I never complained to my parents or school, I made sure I was there at every practice the rest of the season and played in every game. As a parent you want to see your kid play but if the student isn't going to put the same amount of time as everyone else during practice (or open gym) he/she doesn't deserve the same amount or any of playing time as everyone else during the game. More practice should equal more playing time.

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The pussification of America continues.

Joel is going to be on WDAY radio this afternoon and judging by the comments and support he is getting on his Facebook page and other people commenting about the story on their own FB pages I would say Shanley is going to get run through the ringer on this and rightfully so.

The intersting thing will be the backlash this parent may feel in regards to his business dealings and interactions. I don't know him that well but know who he is, but I know quite a few people who run in his circle who may not be aware at this point that he is the one behind this mess as many of these same people also know Joel and have made some pretty disparaging comments regarding how this even happened in the first place and towards the person who put this in motion and at this point I don't think many know who caused this to happen.

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The pussification of America continues.

Joel is going to be on WDAY radio this afternoon and judging by the comments and support he is getting on his Facebook page and other people commenting about the story on their own FB pages I would say Shanley is going to get run through the ringer on this and rightfully so.

The intersting thing will be the backlash this parent may feel in regards to his business dealings and interactions. I don't know him that well but know who he is, but I know quite a few people who run in his circle who may not be aware at this point that he is the one behind this mess as many of these same people also know Joel and have made some pretty disparaging comments regarding how this even happened in the first place and towards the person who put this in motion and at this point I don't think many know who caused this to happen.

That is one long sentence. Besides that I do not even closely see any problem with the text. You would think parents would be happy with a guy like this coaching your kids. Seems to be the parent who whined kid has not been attending the open gym. Now he is worried that his kid won't be playing. Why not tell your kid to hit the gym? Problem solved.
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That is one long sentence. Besides that I do not even closely see any problem with the text. You would think parents would be happy with a guy like this coaching your kids. Seems to be the parent who whined kid has not been attending the open gym. Now he is worried that his kid won't be playing. Why not tell your kid to hit the gym? Problem solved.

There are a couple kinds of parents:

1. Parents that would see this text and tell their kid they better make sure they start going to the open gym activities if they want to get better and be a leader on the team.

2. Parents that would see this text and run to the school bitching, saying the coach is being mean and needs to be fired.

The world could use a lot more of #1 type parents.

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The pussification of America continues.

Joel is going to be on WDAY radio this afternoon and judging by the comments and support he is getting on his Facebook page and other people commenting about the story on their own FB pages I would say Shanley is going to get run through the ringer on this and rightfully so.

The intersting thing will be the backlash this parent may feel in regards to his business dealings and interactions. I don't know him that well but know who he is, but I know quite a few people who run in his circle who may not be aware at this point that he is the one behind this mess as many of these same people also know Joel and have made some pretty disparaging comments regarding how this even happened in the first place and towards the person who put this in motion and at this point I don't think many know who caused this to happen.

A dad complained?!?

Sheesh, time to turn in the man card.

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There are a couple kinds of parents:

1. Parents that would see this text and tell their kid they better make sure they start going to the open gym activities if they want to get better and be a leader on the team.

2. Parents that would see this text and run to the school bitching, saying the coach is being mean and needs to be fired.

The world could use a lot more of #1 type parents.

Though there seems to be more number 2 parents the last 20 years. It really seemed to have changed as the costs went up with more private teams and leagues.
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Though there seems to be more number 2 parents the last 20 years. It really seemed to have changed as the costs went up with more private teams and leagues.

Good point, when parents are writing big checks to have their kids on those ubiquitous traveling teams, they will insist that their kids get playing time in return. I think a return to school and community-based teams would be better all around, but I don't know if we can get the genie back in the bottle.

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unfortunately that is the society we live in today. back in the day this would have never happened but this is what society has evolved into as no one can hurt anyone's feelings or say anything remotely negative about little johnny. just imagine if the coach would have put these kids through a "tough" practice to get their attention. I remeber when I was in junior high school and the upperclassmen skipped a moring practice as was tradition to go out for breakfast. that afternoon the coach put us through a practice we would never forget, but we learned a lesson that unfortunately could not be tolerated today because it would be considered too harsh.

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Although this might not be the place for it, I would love to know the name of the parent behind this crap. Parents think they can anonomously ruin the careers of coaches. They should have to stand up for their actions. I would never do business with someone like this.

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Although this might not be the place for it, I would love to know the name of the parent behind this crap. Parents think they can anonomously ruin the careers of coaches. They should have to stand up for their actions. I would never do business with someone like this.

If I had more than second hand info I would share.....but at this point, even though I am about 99% sure it is correct I am going to hold off with that info....although I am sure it will come out eventually....At the same time if the Administration at Shanley had any stones what so ever they would have told him to set up a meeting with his kid and the coach, so they deserve the negative publicity and blowback they are currently receiving.

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Assuming this is his only transgression and his story is accurate, I have a couple of thoughts. As a school board member for 17 yrs we don't fire a coach cuz a parent complains. We first suggest the athlete sit down and talk to the coach. If that doesn't solve the issue the parent should make an appointment with the coach. If that doesn't work then the parent can make an appointment with the activities director. If that doesn't work they can make an appointment with the activities committee. The process tends to let parent vent and give them and their athlete an opportunity to work with staff to come up with a solution.

If there seems to be a problem with a coach, we would have them meet with the activities director to present their side of the story. We then have policies in place to protect their rights as an employee and allow for due process. Sometimes we have coaches do dumb things or even fail to follow policy. We come up with a corrective action plan and that has allowed some of our coaches to mature and develop rather than lose a potential good coach cuz of a mistake.

There are a couple of things in this email however that concern me. We do not allow our coaches in the off season to make demands of our athletes who participate in other sports during those seasons. That can lead to overuse injuries and kids need to be allowed to be students and kids. Some kids need to work. I think it is great to make facilities available for kids for off season workouts but it isn't appropriate to threaten a kids playing time cuz they aren't practicing baseball when they are in the middle of hockey, bb or wrestling season. I certainly wouldn't fire a coach for this and even if he had been told not to do this you need to allow him due process.

As far as the parent, doesn't matter if its private school or your are a big donor, you don't demand a coach be fired cuz he challenged your kid to do off season workouts. Tell your kid to talk to the coach or you talk to him if that doesn't work.

Lastly, as a Catholic and product of 12 yrs of Catholic education, it bothers me we take a parent complaining more serious than the issues we had with pedophile priests.

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This is from Dobson High in Mesa and what is expected from players. "The Dobson Baseball Program requires a year round commitment by both players and coaches. A student-athlete aspiring to be a member of Mustang Baseball will enroll in 6th hour AA Baseball (Tykoski) for both the Fall and Spring Semesters of his freshman year. During that time, the student-athlete will be instructed in baseball fundamentals and strategies with the intent to refine these skills and perform them in competitive play. Off season conditioning such as weight training, speed and agility training, and physical and mental endurance are held after school. Information will also be given for participation in Fall League Baseball". (more) http://www.mpsaz.org/dobson/staff/dmtykoski/aa_baseball/outline/ This would probably get a Shanley coach fired. This is the schools website.

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