IDIOSYNCRATIC MANAGERIAL TECHNIQUES tend to be excused if they yield results… and don’t compromise the mental well-being of children, of course.
Unfortunately, the methods of Jim Marsh, coach of the Marcellus Mustangs junior varsity basketball team in Syracuse, New York, have neither point counting in their favour.
After his team endured a loss at the hands of local rivals Skaneateles last weekend, Marsh is alleged to have instructed the driver of the team bus to pull over next to a cemetery, whereupon things took a massive turn for the unconventional, as Lindsay Kramer of the Syracuse Post-Standard explains:
“The sources said Marsh, also an English teacher at the high school, ordered the team bus to pull over near the cemetery. He then asked the roughly two dozen players to get out and lay on the graves.The players rested there for several minutes while Marsh preached about the importance of playing hard, and how those buried underneath them would cherish the opportunity to trade places with the players and fight to win.
Marsh then urged the Mustangs to arise from the dead and bring their season back to life.”
Unsurprisingly, both players and their parents were “upset about the matter”.
Marsh’s alleged taste for theatrics is currently the subject of an inquiry lead by district superintendant Craig Tice (not Chalmers).
