Coaching kids takes savvy, class, ability Every...

Coaching kids takes savvy, class, ability

Every time I read a Steve Smith column I feel like I have Ward

Cleaver of “Leave It To Beaver” fame sitting me down to teach lore of

which he knows little.

Smith admits home coaching his son did not work. I certainly hope

this is not a message to other dads and moms who coach their kids.

It takes a special parent with keen knowledge of the sport, of

their kid, and of the team’s limits (not to mention the offspring’s

talent and abilities) to be a youth coach.

Most likely, as is probably the case of Steve Smith, he might have

overestimated his coaching skills and expected greatness to come from

normal leadership, or expected that his winning-isn’t-everything

belief would soon spread so others would never care about winning.

The disease of “Oh, we’re here to be good sports and not care about

winning” was most likely the outcome. As can be the case in our

sometimes cotillion-laden belief system.

To the dads I coached with over the last 13 years in Newport-Mesa,

to the near 1,000 boys and girls clubs kids, to my two daughters and

two sons: Being a dad and coaching was tough, a treat, but we all

left it on the ballfield, and I took a loss to my own room or to

driving alone and blurting out obscenities on my own time on the

freeway, alone.

It takes a certain amount of savvy, class and ability to coach. To

coach your own kid? Ward Cleaver was never a coach. Bottom line, you

must have some experience and maturity to “not bring it home.”

Believe me, in the Theriot household, had we brought Friday and

Saturday night lights home, well, it would not have been pretty.

BRIAN K. THERIOT

Costa Mesa

The KKK has conservative roots

Assemblyman Chuck Devore’s response to your editorial, “Hate has

no place in our fair cities” requires a response in kind.

His statement that conservatives are not to blame is totally false

and misleading.

The Republicans gained ascendancy in the South during the Nixon

administration’s New Southern Strategy. Their plan was to patronize

and cater to conservative, white Southern voters by demonizing the

Democratic Party because of its brave and morally right stand in

advocating civil and voting rights for blacks in segregated Southern

states.

Thus the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln sold its soul to the

white segregationists for political purposes.

As for his claim that the Democratic Party was controlled by the

Ku Klux Klan, the facts are the contrary. The Klan morphed itself

into the White Citizens Council and later, the Conservative Citizens

Council -- all attracting bigoted, white Southerners and never

endorsing Democrats.

Tragically, the great Republican Party abandoned its traditional

moral integrity for political advantage.

TOM BIRCH

Newport Beach