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Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Basketball: Fairness


- George Orwell, Animal Farm

A woman, her husband, and her mother cross a river in a boat which capsizes. The woman is a strong swimmer and can save one. Whom does she save? 

As beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, then so does fairness. Fairness crosses the lines of sport. Basketball fairness includes communication, time, recognition, publicity, officiating, and more.

 We send fairness messages in time, quantity, and tone. Players keep score. Do our best to believe in and value each. After a limited open practice, someone asked UCONN's Geno Auriemma if he didn't yell at players because of guests. He answered that he didn't yell because "players are babies." If he yells, a player says to herself, "Coach hates me." And that doesn't work for their program. 

 In The Politics of Coaching, Coach Carl Pierson shared that he measures speed, strength, and vertical jump during tryouts. When a parent questioned why his daughter had not made the team, Coach Pierson pointed out that she finished at or near the bottom in each area. 

Players measure fairness during practice, repetitions, and minutes. Sometimes tracking helps coaches assure more equality. At other times, people keep score to prove inequality. Group substitutions simplify measurement but can't assure that all players will be happy with minutes, roles, and combinations. Quality and equality are not identical but not fully separate either.  

 Fairness is personal. Fairness is perception. We can treat two people exactly the same and be seen as unfair. For example, if the top player and twelfth man play the same minutes, is that fair or unfair? Is it fair to the fans, the team, and the individual? 

 Some communities make every effort to avoid parent coaches because of concerns about fairness, especially about minutes. But finding enough capable, committed volunteer coaches is hard. 

 Fairness goes public. An area girls' coach winning multiple championships was run off in part by a parent who claimed that the coach had not publicly promoted her daughter enough. 

Fairness challenges us and our values. Fairness balances the desires of the one with the needs of the many. Can everyone get what they want or what they need? Who benefits the most from the most repetitions, the best players or the willing needy? 

Fairness fails with unequal discipline. I've told the girls, that when the star football players get caught with some infractions, they were historically treated more leniently than girls playing other sports. 


Fairness withstands transparency. Are we objective and do we have agendas? We can be objective (share verifiable facts) and still have agendas. We decide which facts and opinions to share and which to omit. Communication informs and seeks to give or get something from the other actors on life's stage.  

Throughout sports, players (high draft picks, "bonus babies", or relatives of management) get more opportunities to rise and to fail. 

Source, Baseball-reference.com 

This former Red Sox player had tastes of five seasons in MLB. He never hit .200 with more than ten at bats in a season and a career negative WAR (wins above replacement). Let's just say he was connected. 

Few officials approach a game intending to be unfair. But there are venues that are especially hard to win at. An NCAA D1 basketball official told me that you will be disinvited to return to referee at a school in northern New York if you are impartial. 

Nobody is perfectly fair but most coaches try. The MomsTeam blog informs, "One way to spot a good youth sports coach is that he teaches, models, and demands respectful behavior, fairness and good sportsmanship." In his letter to players, John Wooden wrote, "You may feel, at times, that I have double standards as I certainly will not treat you all the same...I know I will not be right in all my decisions, but I will attempt to be  both right and fair." 

 Fairness, we know it when we see it. 

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