Dingbats, Dodos And Doozies

Your son plays in a league for six- and seven-year-olds—six- and seven-year-olds!—and you felt he wasn't getting enough playing time, so you yelled at the coach, and the two of you ended up in a fight, which caused you, like any honorable man, to pull a .357 Magnum on him, according to witnesses.

You were booked for assault and reckless endangerment, and you may soon be getting plenty of playing time yourself—in a prison rec yard. In a perfect world, Mr. Derkotch, you'd show someone that gun in your waistband and it'd go off in Yerkrotch.

Now you, Mr. Mack Malone, the football coach at Willis ( Texas) High.

One day last month, just before practice, you found out that six of your players were going to be late because they'd been giving blood for the school's blood drive. So what did you do? You kicked them off the team.

What was going on in your single-celled plankton brain? Is that the lesson you're trying to teach your players, that saving time is more important than saving lives?

After a big fuss was raised, you let the kids back on the team, but you still took away their starting jobs. In a perfect world, Coach, a wayward track-team javelin would land on your foot—during practice —forcing you to start your own blood drive.

Finally, stand before the judge, Mr. Kyle Tobin of Oscoda, Michigan.

Your Oscoda Area High football team got fricasseed every game this year. Didn't even score a point. Your players literally were getting clobbered. So, after four games, you canceled the rest of the season.

What were you thinking, you right-thinking, responsible leader?

In America coaches just don't do that. The guys with the whistles and polyester shorts would rather every kid on the team leave with a broken nose or a jigsaw-puzzle knee than quit. But you had the nerve to actually care for these kids beyond what they meant to your r�sum�. When a team is losing by scores of 46--0, 30--0 and 44--0 (twice) and barely has enough players to fill a roster, that's not football, that's just organized child abuse.