Taxpayers are asked to fund schools with tax dollars while the occasional referendums are placed before voters for purposes ranging from building maintenance to classroom learning. The need for dollars is real and the benefits to society of striving to educate children are without doubt most worthwhile, But one can ask if the amount of money spent on sports programs in our schools has provided the outcomes that we expect? While we have physical education each day for youngsters in our schools there is also the large expenditure that taxpayers provide for sports programs so to assist with the growth in understanding fair play, how to be a gracious loser, and how the spirit of a united contest is of more importance than the individual effort on the court or field. Sports is to build character and make the mind stronger as well as the body.
All that came crashing down when Sun Prairie West High School head boys’ basketball coach Chris Davis acted in ways so unprofessional that he was fired from the position following a January 4 incident after the Wolves lost to Madison East. A video shows that Davis bumped into a Madison East player immediately after the game and verbally confronted a member of the Madison East coaching staff before being restrained and pushed away toward center court. If one listens to the accusations that someone made a slur on another person or did this or that, is simply not a reason to have had a coach act like a third-grader during recess.
We all are aware that being slurred, as unfortunate as that is and there is no excuse for it, happens all too often. That still does not warrant acting like a child when the slur is aimed at you. When you find yourself at the receiving end of such a remark is when there is a need to show a higher character by grinning at the stupidity on display and walking on and getting to the next part of the day. That was the lesson Davis should have openly demonstrated to his boys on the basketball team.
Taxpayers, and correctly so, pay a nice share of income each year for schools so young minds can be shaped in both the classroom and in sports. When such a glaring example of poor sportsmanship is offered to youngsters looking for guidance and examples of how to act when they become adults, there must be a remedy commensurate to the offensive action taken. Davis had to be fired.
What should the basketball boys have learned from Davis’ behavior? When confronted in a mall, parking lot, or fast-food joint the first response to an ignorant slur is to get physical and up in someone’s face? That is not the lesson taxpayers want to see imparted to young people when sending their hard-earned money to their local school district.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 