ESPN Follow Up Story on Joe O'Brien - Former MSU Coach

[dupuyer griz]

I wish this guy the best. If he is let go there, it won't surprise me one bit. Anymore the power is with well to do school board members and high dollar donors. This has been prevalent with too many Montana High Schools since the 1980's. The schools who actually let their coaches coach, and support them are the ones succeeding, on and off the field.

School boards and rich parents are exactly why so many good coaches leave the area or they choose coach AAU teams, camps, etc.

Big money donors and well to do school board members might be how he got the job. Depends on who you talk to.

 

[Grizfan97007]

I wish this guy the best. If he is let go there, it won't surprise me one bit. Anymore the power is with well to do school board members and high dollar donors. This has been prevalent with too many Montana High Schools since the 1980's. The schools who actually let their coaches coach, and support them are the ones succeeding, on and off the field.

School boards and rich parents are exactly why so many good coaches leave the area or they choose coach AAU teams, camps, etc.

Big money donors and well to do school board members might be how he got the job. Depends on who you talk to.

As far as I know and I might be wrong I haven't been to Simms in 11 years but I'm not sure how much ranching and farming make but Simms didn't really have people giving them money.

 

[dupuyer griz]

I wish this guy the best. If he is let go there, it won't surprise me one bit. Anymore the power is with well to do school board members and high dollar donors. This has been prevalent with too many Montana High Schools since the 1980's. The schools who actually let their coaches coach, and support them are the ones succeeding, on and off the field.

School boards and rich parents are exactly why so many good coaches leave the area or they choose coach AAU teams, camps, etc.

Big money donors and well to do school board members might be how he got the job. Depends on who you talk to.

As far as I know and I might be wrong I haven't been to Simms in 11 years but I'm not sure how much ranching and farming make but Simms didn't really have people giving them money.

Some people may or may not have more money than others and may or may not currently or previously have been on the school board.

 

[Grizfan97007]

I wish this guy the best. If he is let go there, it won't surprise me one bit. Anymore the power is with well to do school board members and high dollar donors. This has been prevalent with too many Montana High Schools since the 1980's. The schools who actually let their coaches coach, and support them are the ones succeeding, on and off the field.

School boards and rich parents are exactly why so many good coaches leave the area or they choose coach AAU teams, camps, etc.

Big money donors and well to do school board members might be how he got the job. Depends on who you talk to.

As far as I know and I might be wrong I haven't been to Simms in 11 years but I'm not sure how much ranching and farming make but Simms didn't really have people giving them money.

Some people may or may not have more money than others and may or may not currently or previously have been on the school board.

Yea you maybe right. Like I said I haven't been back there in a while so things may have changed.

 

[mtgrizrule]

FYI, I don't know what it is like in Simms. I just am not a big fan of how high school athletics are ran in too many Montana High Schools. I will leave it at that.

 

[Grizfan97007]

FYI, I don't know what it is like in Simms. I just am not a big fan of how high school athletics are ran in too many Montana High Schools. I will leave it at that.

Simms is a very small high school. When I was there we went through three coaches in four years in basketball and actually had the same coaches for all four years in football. Our expectations in sports were not that high because the schools that were in our district were bigger and had more resources to get the athletes.

 

[grizpack]

For those of you with connections still to Simms, what is the attitude about him now? Will he be kept? I am pulling for the guy.

 

[Walkon79]

A couple weeks ago I watched him coach his team -- for the past several years kind of a non-competitor around here -- to a pretty convincing away-game beat-down of my favorite local 8-man team. His kids were organized and fired up. They had a pretty big crowd, many of whom were wearing t-shirts that said "you gotta believe."

Are you talking about when they crushed Centerville?

anybody that crushes the miners is OK in my book....

I second that! :clap:

And I'll answer before someone asks the question. I was an old Stanford Wolf when there still was such a thing. Great rivalry with the Miners back in the old 8C of the late 70's, and made some good friends.

 

[Grizfan-24]

FYI, I don't know what it is like in Simms. I just am not a big fan of how high school athletics are ran in too many Montana High Schools. I will leave it at that.

I would like to say that athletics and schools in other states are better, but they aren't. For all the problems that Simms has had, they aren't much different than many schools that are in my area, including mine.

As 97007 noted, very few places engage in multiple year contracts for high school coaches. I learned that the hard way both in my current school as well as in Montana. Unfortunately, school boards have the power to subvert A.D. recommendations and go their own way. The whole process that removed the former Frenchtown head football coach happened this way. The point is simply schools don't need a reason to fire coaches. I learned that lesson and there are a million other coaches in Montana and the west can relate such an experience of being let go as a coach with no recourse or ability to state your case. Just politics.

 

[wbtfg]

Long, but a good read. Can't help but wish the best for him.

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/9714247/breaking-good" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What a great read...thanks for posting!

 

[grizcountry420]

A couple weeks ago I watched him coach his team -- for the past several years kind of a non-competitor around here -- to a pretty convincing away-game beat-down of my favorite local 8-man team. His kids were organized and fired up. They had a pretty big crowd, many of whom were wearing t-shirts that said "you gotta believe."

Are you talking about when they crushed Centerville?

anybody that crushes the miners is OK in my book....

I second that! :clap:

Hey! Settle down now..

 

[Grizfan97007]

For those of you with connections still to Simms, what is the attitude about him now? Will he be kept? I am pulling for the guy.

I actually live I the Portland area now. But talking to people who still live around there as long as the team wins he will stay.

 

[stubbins]

A couple weeks ago I watched him coach his team -- for the past several years kind of a non-competitor around here -- to a pretty convincing away-game beat-down of my favorite local 8-man team. His kids were organized and fired up. They had a pretty big crowd, many of whom were wearing t-shirts that said "you gotta believe."

Are you talking about when they crushed Centerville?

anybody that crushes the miners is OK in my book....

I second that! :clap:

And I'll answer before someone asks the question. I was an old Stanford Wolf when there still was such a thing. Great rivalry with the Miners back in the old 8C of the late 70's, and made some good friends.

that must've been the old, old 8C...because the 8C of the late 80's/early 90's didn't have Stanford in it...BTW, I didn't know there was no such thing as a Stanford Wolf anymore. When did that happen?

 

[stubbins]

For those of you with connections still to Simms, what is the attitude about him now? Will he be kept? I am pulling for the guy.

I actually live I the Portland area now. But talking to people who still live around there as long as the team wins he will stay.

I would hope winning or losing isn't the only reason he's there. I am pulling for him. He seem to have looked at himself, doesn't hide anything about his past, and imo, can look a high school student in the eye and tell him to walk the line and actually explain why.

 

[grizcountry420]

Are you talking about when they crushed Centerville?

anybody that crushes the miners is OK in my book....

I second that! :clap:

And I'll answer before someone asks the question. I was an old Stanford Wolf when there still was such a thing. Great rivalry with the Miners back in the old 8C of the late 70's, and made some good friends.

that must've been the old, old 8C...because the 8C of the late 80's/early 90's didn't have Stanford in it...BTW, I didn't know there was no such thing as a Stanford Wolf anymore. When did that happen?

Stanford was 7C when i was going to school in the mid 90's

 

[Grizfan97007]

For those of you with connections still to Simms, what is the attitude about him now? Will he be kept? I am pulling for the guy.

I actually live I the Portland area now. But talking to people who still live around there as long as the team wins he will stay.

I would hope winning or losing isn't the only reason he's there. I am pulling for him. He seem to have looked at himself, doesn't hide anything about his past, and imo, can look a high school student in the eye and tell him to walk the line and actually explain why.

I agree with you. But sadly that is how they look at it there it has been like that and always will be. They always wanted to be able to compete with the bigger schools.

 

[DuCharme]

I didn't see yesterday's game, but wish I had.
Simms was down 56-20 before rattling off 46 unanswered points to win, 66-56.