Paging Glen Mason
Every week I receive a free local community newspaper. I usually give it a quick run through, to check out the police report and and government activities of interest. The last few pages are devoted to sports news which is typically not all that rosy for the local high school. You see a lot stories like:
"Park girls soccer team ends season 5-17. Here a few of the bright spots..."
"Volleyball coach looking forward to next season with a number of players returning..."
"Oriole basketball team plays hard before falling again..."
The stories are not negative in any way, nor should they be. We're talking high school after all. But this week's edition featured an absolute classic line from the St. Louis Park football coach. It's not yet available online but the just of the story is this:
The football team finished the regular season with a 2-7 mark. Somehow this got them the third seed in the six team playoff section they were placed in. I don't know if it's because of some sort of BCS-like strength of schedule rating or what. Anyway they opened the playoffs at home against hated Shakopee. Shakopee entered the game as the sixth seed with a 0-8 record.
The result? Shakopee 22 St. Louis Park 7
The local eleven committed five turnovers on the way to getting their arses handed to them on their home turf by a team that hadn't won a game all year. So what was the problem coach?
"Shakopee played awfully hard", said St. Louis Park head coach Andy Ewald. "Being a favorite in the playoffs and having a home game was a new role for us. We have always played well in that underdog role. This was a role reversal."
This has to rank among the all time lamest excuses ever offered by a losing football coach. And I should know having lived (barely) through years of Denny Green with the Vikings and now Glen Mason with the University of Minnesota. Let's leave aside the fact the if the team had really "played well in that underdog role" it should have been better than 2-7 (they lost the last game of the regular season 42-0), but how can you blame the loss on the quite reasonable expectation that you might actually be able to beat a team that was 0-8? Were your guys "looking past" Shakopee? If so how can any 2-7 team look past anybody?
The really pathetic thing is that if SLP had played a better team and lost 49-7 the first thing out of old coach's mouth would have been, "Well we were the heavy underdog you know...".
Sorry to have saddled you squad with an expectation of victory coach. It won't happen again.
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