As a coach, and a broadcaster I find some things tend to get on my nerves.  I’m sure I get on other coaches nerves too!  One of the things that I have noticed of late is coaches have made a habit of pressing late in games when they are down by 20 points or so.  It’s just ridiculous. When the winning team’s coach empties his bench it’s a sign for everyone in the gym, and that means the same for the losing coach’s team that he needs to empty his or her bench too!  Give your kids some quality time against the other teams bench and move on.  I’ve seen it far too many times this year, both as a coach, and as a broadcaster.  When it’s time to waive the white flag, do it, and let the other kids play, and play half court defense!

Here’s another thing that draws my ire-and it makes zero sense.  We all know that Vermont winters can be tough.  With that in mind why is it that Athletic Directors schedule 7:30pm basketball games during the week?  AD’s and/or league schedulers should not allow this to happen.  I’ve heard the same old blah blah blah about people not being able to get to the games because of work. Um, excuse me, what about the Fall and Spring season? When are those games?  4 or 4:30 right?  There’s absolutely no reason all basketball games can’t start at 5 o’clock for the JV games and 6:30 for the Varsity.  Even teams with an hour and a half drive will be home by 9:30 or 10:00 which is a reasonable hour to still be home, grab something to eat, and work on their homework.  Think about it, when teams start at 7:30pm that have a 1.5 hour or 2.0 hour drive, they don’t get home until 11pm or later.  If they have 2 hours of homework it’s impossible to get any reasonable amount of sleep. Educators are supposed to be aware of these situations.  I’m sorry but this has not been thought out well by anyone who is scheduling games at 7:30 at night!  It just hasn’t.  The latest research shows young athletes need at least 9 hours of sleep, and proper nutrition to maintain their growth and live a healthy lifestyle.  Figure it out-change the game times to 5 and 6:30(like the Metro Conference currently does it by the way).  I haven’t really even mentioned anything about bad roads.  Think about it.

That’s it for now.