Coaches vs. Parents: Setting an Example?

You’d think that nearly a quarter century of service would count for something, but apparently not in the case of Mike DeMazza, who resigned last week as head football coach at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

DeMazza has taught social studies and coached baseball and football for 23 years. He has a reputation for going the extra mile for his students, and of being generous with his time and energy.

Since his mid-season appointment as head coach in the 2003 season, the team has struggled. There is no getting away from the numbers: 8-34 as head coach from 2003 to 2006.

With the formation of the co-op with Wamogo, and a larger pool of players, the team began to come together. The won-lost record remained poor, but anybody with eyes could see the difference between this season’s Mountaineers and the 2005 group.

And with 26 experienced players returning — players brought along by DeMazza — there is every reason to think that Housy football is on the way up.

But none of that mattered to a small group of parents, who wanted DeMazza out. They created a poisonous atmosphere at home games by providing a loud running commentary, questioning and belittling the coaches in general and DeMazza in particular.

Who knows what they said at home.

As an experiment, imagine doing your job with a handful of hecklers questioning your every move in public. Then imagine the same people sending letters and e-mails to your employer, questioning not only your competence but your character.

How long would you stick around?

And if DeMazza decided to fight back, what would be next? Physical attacks? It happens, all over the country.

It would be nice to think that our little corner of the world is more civilized than other spots, but the fact remains: Demazza was hounded unmercifully.

And it’s all quite pointless. The poor sap who takes the job next could be a supernatural being with the genes of Vince Lombardi and Knute Rockne combined in a gridiron messiah, and it wouldn’t change the truth: Housatonic is a small school and getting smaller; high school kids today have an ever-increasing range of distractions and options for their spare time; and until the advent of the Steamrollers, we hadn’t had any kind of youth football program in Region One since the 1950s — the kind of program that gives kids invaluable experience prior to high school.

Even the most unhinged Demazza detractor would have a hard time pinning all that on the former coach.

If we were talking about DeMazza against the backdrop of an 8-2 record (rather than 2-8 in 2006), the same parents would be praising him to the skies as a great disciplinarian and molder of young men.

One parent asked me, rhetorically and with some heat, how much fun could it be for his son to participate on losing teams? He had a point.

But I would ask in return: How much fun is it for any kid to participate on any team if his coaches are constantly harassed in public and in private? How can a coach possibly provide guidance and leadership under such circumstances? Is this really the way to go about effecting a coaching change, if that’s what the parents want? What kind of example is being set here? Bullying and character assassination are fine, as long as it’s in the service of winning football games?

We’re talking about high school football, for crying out loud. And we’re not in Texas, where towns go into hock to finance stadiums and public schools sell luxury boxes.

If the same group goes after the next coach when he somehow fails to deliver instant state championships and Division One scholarships, maybe the parents who are still sane will have a quiet word with the cabal, and ask them — politely, of course — to knock it off.