I sent this email to Mike and Mike after watching the debate this morning about coaches’ responsibility for their players’ academic performances. I was surprised to hear Greeny walking the narrow line that coaches’ responsibility ends with basketball alone, and wanted to urge him to reframe his thinking. In honor of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament tip-off today, I thought I’d share the letter and remind everyone of the Coaching Boys Into Men program. 

Greeny/Golic/Gottlieb,

What Greeny is really missing in the debate about coaches’ responsibility for players’ academic performance is that coaches have the greatest opportunity to inspire the young men they coach to be as proficient off the court as they are on it. This opportunity that only coaches have is so critical, and its misleading, Greeny, to think of the dynamic only in terms of responsibility and blame. 

Does an 18-year-old basketball star trust an academic advisor the way he must trust his coach? Does the academic advisor show up every day to lead and mentor that young star the way his coach does? Does the academic advisor connect to the driving passion of that young man’s life - basketball - the way his coach does? No. And as any coach will tell you, if you feel that your ability and responsibility to influence young men exists only within the bounds of a court and timeclock, you should not be coaching. Nor will you make it very far if you do coach!

Face it, Greeny: If an alien came to earth, it’d wonder why the bearded guy who works 9-5 in the Quad takes responsibility for the basketball player’s grades and not the father-figure by their side day in and day out, on the court and on the bus, from dawn til late night tipoff. 

Take it from coaches themselves:

“We teach players that honor and respect are keys to a team playing a game. How can we not teach them that honor and respect are even more important in their lives?” — Tubby Smith

“Coaches are masters of communication. It’s our responsibility to lead, instruct and inspire young athletes.” — Dick Vitale

“In sport and in life values and attitudes are as important to winning as are strength and endurance.” — John Thompson III

“The most important quality I look for in a player is accountability. You’ve got to be accountable for who you are.” — Lenny Wilkens

“We live in a very difficult time for young kids… there are so many things coming at them that it’s important to have good values and to be grounded. Teens need to know what counts and what doesn’t.” — Pat Riley

These quotes are pulled from the “Coaching Boys Into Men” program, created by the Family Violence Prevention Fund. The program incorporates coaches’ incredible influence in the lives of male youth in order to spread a message about respectful, nonviolent relationships with women. Please share, spread the word, and visit www.coaches-corner.org to learn more. 

Thanks for reading, Brian

I just got back from a lunch lecture at Harvard titled, “Is Salt Water Thicker Than Blood? Allah’s Bonbibi and the Making of Kin in Deltaic Bengal.” The presenter shared fascinating information from over a decade of studying fishing communities in the Sundarbans, the huge tidal forest at the mouth of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers.

Residents of the Sundarbans, it seems, have formed “elected kinship” relationships with fellow members of their social class, regardless of religion or profession but based on a shared subaltern (read other-than-some-real-or-perceived-outside-elite-class) identity. The most fascinating bit: this extended kinship includes the man-eating tigers in the region.

Thus families extend themselves ritually, knowing that extended social networks are critical in times of crisis. This extension even welcomes tigers, whom the residents call, “our tigers” or “our big cats,” not wanting to summon them by pronouncing their name.

Interesting, but incomplete. I asked her a couple of the obvious gender analytical questions behind this phenomenon and she had dismissive anecdotal answers at best. I was frustrated, but not surprised, that in her decade-plus of intensive research she never wondered:

• What family role does the tiger assume? Is it male or female, young or old, by blood or in-law?
• Who proposes and negotiates for new elected kinship relationships? Men? Women? Children? (All along she said “people” or “fishers”, to which I asked, “When you say ‘people,’ do you mean ‘men’?”)
• Whose interest does the extending of kinship relationships serve? Women’s? Men’s? Particular agrarian communities (fishers, gatherers, cultivators)?

Dear readers, please take note any time the actions and motivations of men are tantamount to “social trends” worthy of academic papers while the actions and motivations of women are only tossed around as quaint anecdotes.