MARASCO: A Little Perspective Goes a Long Way

Perhaps one of the greatest assets one can possess in life is the ability to keep his head, take a step back and have the emotional control to put things in perspective.

Taking the immediate emotion out of business can save a company billions. Having perspective can save relationships – even lives, for that matter.

In society we value those who have the ability to keep a cool head, sift through jungles of dramatic emotions and come to rational decisions. These people become our judges, our leaders.

So why in sports does it seem that the art of the cool head – the ability to have perspective – is so unimportant to so many who follow and care about them?

Too often those in the sports world lose their head, fly off the handle and become prisoners of the moment.

You see it everywhere in sports. Many in the U.S. sports media would have you believe that Tim Tebow – who completes 47 percent of his passes – is an elite quarterback, or that LeBron James – who has a player efficiency rating of 30.8 this season – isn’t an MVP candidate.

Red Sox and Cubs fans blamed ghosts, goats and some guy named Bartman for a century of poor organizational decisions.

When we really take the emotion out of scenarios such as those, the truth stares us right in the face.

Still, so many choose to shove powers of reason under the rug and succumb to the uglier side of sports – unchecked emotional irrationality.

The articles, the posts in the fan blogs, the cheap shots, such as those in the BC Interruption earlier this week, attacking Jack Parker – some calling for his job and others questioning his character – all paint the same ugly picture of a world where overreaction rules the day and has no patience for reason.

The reasons are all more painfully rooted in lunacy than the next.

“He’s too old!”

He’s 67. You know who will be turning 67 this July? Jerry York. So, going by that logic, the coach who has won three of five national titles should be fired on July 25th due to instant-onset-coaching-abilities-loss.

Another one lost. . . . When are we going to find a cure for that damn disease?

Tom Coughlin is 65. Jim Calhoun will be 70 in less than a month. Those guys still do OK.

How quickly we forget Parker coached the Terriers to the national championship in 2009.

So, a few early season losses, and everyone decides that he’s senile and can’t coach. Then, he takes all the heat for two players getting into legal trouble, and that becomes the new reason to leave him in a roadside ditch.

Everyone understands that those allegations are terrible. The players were dismissed – and they needed to be – but to say that the man doesn’t have control of the team just doesn’t make sense.

What about all his players who have gone on to become class acts in the NHL? What about the ones who have captained Olympic teams? What about a guy like Chris Connolly? You can’t rip him for the bad kids and take the good ones for granted.

Are we forgetting that he won the Lester Patrick award a year and a half ago?

I’m not in the locker room. I don’t know what goes on in there. None of us really do. But hasn’t Coach Parker earned a little bit of the benefit of the doubt? We can’t even entertain the idea of this being an anomaly?

Criminals who are not frequent offenders are given lesser penalties. Employees who are usually on time are not fired for being late once or twice. Doctors don’t lose their license if they’re wrong about one diagnosis.

So why should a coach who has had a solid track record over the last 40 years not be given the benefit of the doubt and get fired for one blemish?

The BC Interruption compared Jack Parker’s scenario to that of Joe Paterno’s at Penn State.

So, I should be made to believe there is any similarity between a coach who knew the facts of a criminal scenario and allowed the perpetrators to remain on campus, to one in which the coach dismissed the players involved immediately upon his knowledge of the events taking place?

We’re also talking about a 20-year age gap between Parker and Paterno, so the “they’re both old guys” thing doesn’t play.

I’m not disputing that the off-ice issues of last season need to be addressed and heavily monitored, but let’s not be irrational about it.

Still, some call for his head because of what happened on the ice this season.

Huh?

I could argue that this season was one of Parker’s best coaching jobs. He lost his two best offensive players and another solid blueliner and still had the Terriers ranked No. 2 in the nation in mid-February.

And he’s suddenly lost the ability to reach these kids? I don’t buy it.

Consider this a prime case study on how to avoid being a prisoner of the moment. The world is not flat. There is no Boogie-Man. Jack Parker is not a bad guy, and he didn’t forget how to coach.

Sports are just a small microcosm of life, and life is all about perspective.