Champ Ligon appreciates support

Champ Ligon, who was fired as Byran Station’s boys’ basketball coach on Monday, had what he called a “farewell party” with players and assistant coaches Thursday night. “There was a lot of team bonding going on,” he said. Shelvin Mack, the Defenders’ star player who’ll be a senior next season, told Ligon he’s got a petition going hoping to win the coach his job back. “I wished him the best of luck in that endeavor,” Ligon said with a laugh.

Ligon said he may reapply for his coaching position at Bryan Station, and he is supposed to meet with superintendent Stu Silberman next week. But he is “not optimistic about this having a Hollywood ending. This is the real world. I realize the nature of the situation.”

Ligon has been on just about every TV and radio sports show in Lexington the last few days, being asked why he was let go after rebuilding the Bryan Station program into a state power, and leading the Defenders to more wins over the last three years than any of their public-school rivals in town despite not having a home gym. (Ligon even used money out of his own pocket to purchase a used 12-passenger van to transport his players.)

Ligon doesn’t have an answer, except to say that principal Gladys Peoples “makes the decisions on her staff, and she doesn’t have to have a reason.”

Peoples sent this email yesterday to members of Bryan Station’s site-based council: “I wanted to send all of you an update on the situation in the meda regarding Champ Ligon. All personnel issues are confidential and not open for discussion. My decisions are always made in the best interest of students. Please be aware that the superintendent and school board fully support me in my decision.”

That makes it sound as if Ligon may be guilty of some transgression that Peoples doesn’t want to reveal. Ligon countered: “Would I be out there talking to the (media) if I had done anything to put my job in jeopardy? And why would they want me to remain there as a teacher? I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ve done nothing improper in any way to warrant this sort of treatment.”

Ligon said it has been “a very sad week,” but the “silver lining is all the love and support I’ve gotten from so many people.” When Ligon was on the Joe B. Hall-Denny Crum radio show on Thursday, Hall gave Ligon a hearty endorsement. “Coach Hall said it was the first time they’d ever taken a strong stand on the show, and I really appreciated them doing it for me.”

Graduation as a spectator sport

I went to my youngest daughter’s high school graduation ceremony in Rupp Arena last week and at times thought I had stumbled into a monster truck show.

The guy behind me was blasting an air horn. A few rows down people were snarfing down a tub of popcorn they got at the concession stand. A dozen or so “fans” in the back row were whooping and hollering so loud you would’ve thought there was a mud-wrestling sideshow.

Pomp and Circumstance? How about Rude and Obnoxious.

Rupp Arena is a terrific home for UK basketball, the Sweet Sixteen, rock concerts, the circus, and indoor football. It is a lousy place to hold a high school graduation. Yes, it’s spacious enough to hold everbody and their cousin who wants to see Jimmy or Julie get his or her diploma. But the arena, being first and foremost a sports venue, encourages rowdy behavior.

I know I’m getting old. I remember my own high school graduation, which was held in a school auditorium, as a relatively decorous event. There was kidding and laughter among my buddies, but our parents behaved themselves.

Society in general has forgotten about civility. Everybody’s a little bit louder, cruder and inconsiderate. At last week’s graduation ceremony, just before diplomas were awarded, the principal asked the crowd to please refrain from loud outbursts so that every student’s name could be heard when it was announced. He was wasting his breath. Even before that, during interludes between musical performances, people in the stands were shouting out to students on the floor as if they were at a Rascal Flatts concert.

Once the diploma roll call began, the noise level from “fans” steadily increased. When the guy behind me blasted his air horn the first time, I turned and gave him a look of disgust. He shot back something to the effect that “this is a celebration!” Right. So is a wedding, but I’ve never heard an “I do” accompanied by a clanging cow bell.

To be fair, if there were 3,000 people at the graduation ceremony, probably fewer than 200 behaved boorishly. But that was enough to spoil the occasion for everybody. One theory advanced by a family member was that there is an inverse proportion at work here. The most loutish people at a high school graduation were the least involved in their kid’s education.

Sounds right to me.

Champ Ligon deserved better

“I think Bryan Station is a gold mine waiting to happen, and hopefully I’ll be able to mine that gold.”

 

Champ Ligon was smiling when he said those words on Aug. 9, 2002, after he was introduced by Bryan Station principal Bob Gilmore as the Defenders’ new boys’ basketball coach. Ligon, shown at right on that day, didn’t have reason to be optimistic. He was taking on a reclamation project that was Bryan Station basketball, a program that won only two games the previous year, and had a thin roster coming back. In the ultra-competitive 11th Region, Bryan Station looked like a punching bag for years to come.

But just three seasons later, Ligon had the Defenders rated among the state’s elite and playing in the region finals. Bryan Station has spent most of the last two years rated in the top 10, too. This past winter the Defenders were rated as high as No. 2, and certified that standing by playing No. 1 (and eventual state champ) Scott County exceptionally tough in three losses.

Over the past three years, Bryan Station won 68 games, more than any of its city public school rivals, even though IT DIDN’T HAVE A HOME GYM! for almost that entire time.

But apparently that wasn’t enough. Champ Ligon was fired this week. He said principal Gladys Peoples told him he had done a great job revitalizing the Defenders’ proud tradition, but she thought it’d be better if they got a new coach for the refurbished gym, somebody to take the program to an even higher level.

Wow. Talk about lofty basketball goals. Peoples must be dreaming about hoops in the stratosphere.

After news of Ligon’s dismissal spread across town yesterday, most of the reaction I heard was disbelief. A lot of us connected to high school sports in Lexington, Ligon included, had heard rumors the last couple years that his job might be in jeopardy. (That same rumor mill has churned out the name of former Defenders star Mike Allen as the next coach.) But it strained credibility that Ligon, a guy who turned a moribund program into a state power, could be shown the door. The fact that he was a terrific math and physics teacher, too, makes the decision to let him go that much more mystifying.

I don’t know everything that goes on behind the scenes, especially the personality conflicts between coaches and players, coaches and administrators, coaches and parents. I do know that the basketball team that Bryan Station put on the floor since Ligon arrived five years ago has represented the school in exemplary fashion, in class and competitiveness.

Ligon did what he said he’d do. He mined the school for basketball gold and made the Defenders rich again. Then he was told he no longer had a stake in the program.

Champ Ligon deserved better than that.

Mountain man McCoy heads West

Randy McCoy, who made a name for himself coaching basketball in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, was at the other end of the state yesterday. He was in Hopkinsville, his new home after being named the new coach at University Heights Academy. “I’ve been looking for some mountains down here, but all I can find is an ant hill with real tall trees,” McCoy said with a laugh by cell phone from Hoptown.

McCoy coached at Elkhorn City for 12 years and won 222 games, including a 15th Region title in 1993. It was the school’s first trip to the Sweet Sixteen in 51 years. He moved on to become Pikeville College’s head coach in 1999, and was there seven years, highlighted by a NAIA Final Four appearance in 2001. (McCoy is shown above celebrating the 2001 Mid-South Conference title with Ricky Freeman.)

After getting out of coaching last year, McCoy, 52, wasn’t sure if, when or where he’d return to the game. But he found the UHA job “intriguing,” and after talking with the Blazers the last couple weeks, he decided to head to Western Kentucky. “It’s a unique situation,” he said. “It’s a little bit different, with the real small size of the school, but a lot of good players.” UHA doesn’t lack for tradition. It won the 1992 Sweet Sixteen championship, and has won the Touchstone Energy All “A” Classic small-school title seven times.

UHA will have two of the best seniors in the state next season in Scotty Hopson, who has commited to Mississippi State, and Tyshawn Edmondson. Despite having those standouts last season, the Blazers struggled to a 13-14 record and. Phil Keller resigned as coach.

McCoy’s return to high school hoops will mean the return of a good quote. As head coach of the 1993 Kentucky All-Stars (a team that included such Division I talent as Jason Osborne, Darnell Burton, Danyell Macklin and Anthony Epps), McCoy was asked about the stars he had at his disposal. “My biggest worry is the kids won’t understand how I talk,” he quipped in his Eastern Kentucky drawl.

Hey kids, A-Rod was off base

Just suppose . . .

The score is tied in the bottom of the seventh inning of the state high school baseball championship game at Applebee’s Park in a few weeks.

The home team has a runner at second with two outs. The batter hits a high pop-up to the left side of the infield. As the third baseman camps under the ball to make the catch, the baserunner crosses in front of him and shouts, “I got it!” The third baseman, thinking it’s his shortstop yelling at him, backs off, and the ball drops to the turf. The runner, meanwhile, races home with the winning run.

Would high school rules allow the umpires to call the runner out and erase the winning run? You bet. I talked to a couple local umpire Bob Eades (no, that’s not him pictured above) about the scenario after reading about New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez pulling that kind of stunt — and getting away with it — in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays Wednesday night.

In high school baseball, I would hope most umpires would call the runner out for such shenanigans. Eades, a former baseball coach and current ump, said the rules regarding interference, or unsportsmanlike conduct, would cover the situation and allow the runner to be called out. “It seems like sports are getting crazier all the time, or maybe it’s my age. I see a lot of things put on umpires or officials that I think the coaches should be taking care of,” Eades said.

Baseball is a game of deception by nature. Curveballs are supposed to fool hitters. Batters act like they’re going to bunt, then swing away. Baserunners dance off third trying to get a pitcher to balk. And what about the ol’ hidden-ball trick? What A-Rod did might be OK in the big leagues, but it would be unsportsmanlike conduct on the high school level, where the game is played for fun, not big bucks.

The most unfortunate thing about it is that some kids who read the sports pages or watch ESPN will follow A-Rod’s example and try the same trick in Little League. That’s why youth-league baseball coaches need to make it clear to their players that big-leaguers don’t always play the game the right way.