[charlie22]

Change can be good and is often hard to accept. However, I hope you aren't turning this around to look like the boys were all the problem last year. Boys will play with their heart when they respect a coach and a coach respects them. Not showing game film the last half of the season or having the weight room open when it snowed or coaches always in a hurry to go home are the things that boys see as not caring about them. I hope the coach does have a better relationship with the boys and also that coaches have some respect for parents too.

Who is the "you" you are referring to? Certainly not me I hope as I've posted nothing about the players. Rather, my posts have addressed the criticisms of LCC's coach for doing things differently than the prior coach and getting rid of some past "traditions" at LCC. A few years back, CovCath hired a coach to replace the legendary Coach Ray. Fortunately for him, he won a state championship in his second year there (and then promptly left for Ohio). His replacement came in and changed some traditions of the school. When his team struggled (against a God awful schedule I might add) in my opinion the supporters, fans and parents attacked him like a starving wolf on an injured elk. Once that started, the players lost faith and confidence in the coach also. Then it was curtain time and that coach moved on also. CovCath has still not fully recovered from it in my opinion. Just because a coach doesn't continue some tradition is not grounds for the program's supporters turning on him, even if the team struggles. That's when real supporters support the coach, the program and the players even more. That's when they need you the most. Fans are people that cheer on the team when they win. Supporters are those that back the coach, the program and the players through wins and losses. I truly hope that things don't turn out at LCC the way they did at CovCath. That would be a shame.

As for players playing hard when they respect the coach (and by corollary, not playing hard when they don't respect the coach), I have to admit I don't understand that line of thinking. I didn't respect my college football coach as a coach one bit. Nice guy but a real boob of a coach. That didn't impact my effort at all. I played every play as hard as I could in order to win and for those of my teammates doing the same as I.