This is disgusting. Paddling should only be used to discipline women's tennis players. Dirty, dirty women's tennis players.
This is a tough one for me. Coach Lathrop is obviously pretty successful four state championships prove that. And his players don't condemn him for the paddlings. In fact, they seem to appreciate it. But isn't high school a little old for pulling out the paddle? And doesn't a good coach have other methods (playing time, benching, extra practice work) to motivate his kids? As a coach myself, I know dealing with teens can be difficult, but I would never think to beat one of them as punishment for practice habits.
I wonder how uncommon paddling is among some of the old fogeys coaching school ball. When I was playing junior high basketball in Burleson, Texas, in the '80s, the coaches would occasionally break out the paddle to dish out some creepy homoerotic whup-ass. I avoided that fate, thankfully. But I must've been sentenced to running lines as punishment about 1,000 times.
rcade - at your school...did the coach make you lie over his lap? Just trying to get a picture, here...
I'm guessing that he did, but I never actually saw it. The paddler and paddlee were on the other side of the lockers, which were in the same room, putting us in earshot of the screams of the damned.
That's bullshit. My high school basketball coach was one of these types--he used to heave basketballs and smack one of my teammates in the back of the head. I made a vow to myself that if he ever hurled a ball at me I would whip it back--but he never did it to me. Of course, this guy was seventy years old, so it's not like I'd have been going after a Ditka. Or even a Mini-Ditka.
FYI -- Raytown South is on the Missouri side of the border. (In reference to the link headline.)
Can we get back to the important subtopic spanking female tennis players? C'mon, guys ... focus!
