Mad World
Memo To Morons
By Mark Madden

Memo to morons: If you want to bamboozle an accomplished high school coach out of a job, don't have a kid on the team who never plays.

Chartiers Valley boys' basketball coach Tim McConnell is a bit rough around the edges, to be sure. Yells a little too loud, swears a little too much. But McConnell could have forced his players to sacrifice live goats at pre-game rituals, and Chartiers Valley school board member Tony Moses still wouldn't have had a chance to oust McConnell, not even with photos of a naked, blood-spattered coach genuflecting before Beelzebub (who, by the way, has a devil put aside for me).

Why? Because Moses had a kid on the team who rode the bench, that's why. You have no credibility in that situation because it's assumed that you're trying to avenge the splinters in your offspring's tuchus.

School board creeps with uncoordinated kids have been trying, with varying degrees of success, to take out high school coaches for years. Even the all-time greats aren't safe. North Hills football coach Jack McCurry and Upper St. Clair football coach Jim Render are among those who had similarly close calls.

As shameful as these situations are, they make for some Kodak moments. NFL linebacker LaVar Arrington spoke at a North Hills school board meeting on McCurry's behalf, proving that an angry behemoth with a menacing glare always comes in handy. Render's employment was threatened because he played a school board jerk's kid at defensive back, not quarterback as preferred.

Think about that-the kid played. Started. That still wasn't enough for Daddy Dearest.

Perhaps the worst thing about such lunacy is that accomplished coaches are put in the embarrassing position of having to campaign for their jobs. If you wonder why they don't walk, it's because they love coaching. We should love them for that.

One coach who should be canned is Aliquippa basketball coach Marvin Emerson.

When Emerson's team lost the state championship game, most of the Quips tried to leave the court before the awards ceremony. When star player Herb Pope was given his silver medal, he dropped it to the floor. Pope later joined several teammates in abandoning the runner-up trophy upon presentation.

That's low class. That's a team with inadequate adult supervision; a team out of control.

Maybe Pope is just trouble personified. He got shot four times at an early-morning party a week after losing the state final. Random shootings happen all the time. Like at the end of "Scarface."

Nobody seems to buy the "wrong place, wrong time" theory. The "wrong crowd" theory? Warmer.

Some feel I'm too hard on high-school kids, but Pope is 18 and a public figure. If the media can hype these kids beyond logic because they happen to play a game well, we can hold them accountable for abject stupidity, too.

Who holds me accountable for abject stupidity? No one. I'm a radio talk-show host, after all.

Mark Madden hosts a sports talk show 3-7 p.m. weekdays on ESPN Radio 1250.