Sometimes, athletes must put up with coaches

There's been a lot of talk this year about Ann Gilbert, coach of the women's basketball team. Most of it has been negative. Thirteen players quit, a development which this newspaper hinted Gilbert's responsibility for by an article printed two weeks ago.

I probably wouldn't take any more time to think about this than what was told to me by the article if I hadn't gotten bludgeoned by a certain sports editor into writing for this section. Guess which team I got stuck with?

I've talked to friends on campus and overheard plenty of conversations, and what most people say when I bring up my new vocation is, "Oh yeah, women's basketball, that's the team with that coach that everybody hates."

Gilbert is far from being the first coach to acquire that label. The only difference is that the entire campus knows about it, because about 93 percent of her team from last year to this year quit.

I can't get into the issue of whether Gilbert deserves the rap she has now or not. Really, I'm not informed enough to do so, and in the end all I would be doing was feeding another bias into the mess. So my opinions have something to do with Gilbert and something to do with Oberlin sports in general.

Okay, so I'll admit this isn't an argument, it's propaganda. I get to write it anyway, though, because we call propaganda "press boxes" in the Sports section.

As a senior varsity soccer player, I'll graduate knowing that I've had what is probably a frequent Division III experience, playing for more than one coach. There was no soccer dynasty waiting for me when I arrived, just a history of a lot of past teams that had been more or less "competitive."

Boy, did we screw that up in my four years here.

The teams I played on never won more than five games in a season, and we got pounded once by Ohio Wesleyan 14-0. But despite those awful, demoralizing seasons, not all of them with inspiring coaches, I never considered winning to be the reason why I was out there.

I played because I loved playing, and I wanted to be a part of a team. Those things superceded coaches whose philosophies I didn't agree with. Yeah, I ranted and raved at times to other players. I did my share of Oberlin whining, but I tried to leave that attitude behind when I stepped onto the practice or game field.

Supporting the team, my friends and the program were the most important things to me.

You should always be looking to improve, and sometimes that means looking for a new coach. That's not the only solution, though. Sometimes it means looking for a new team.

Communication is a two way process, and so is respect. Shutting up and paying attention when a coach is talking, showing up on time for practices and giving everything in every drill are a part of that. I've never been able to fool a coach when I wasn't giving 100 percent.

They know, and it affects your relationship with them. They give their all to players who are able and willing to give everything they can to the game.

I can't speak to last year's women's basketball team. That is a shadow Gilbert and those players will have to deal with.

But I do know that I have heard some god-awful whining in my years here from sensitive people who think coaching equals personal criticism.