March sadness

As the college basketball tournament season heats up – conference tournaments, automatic bids, at-large bids, bubble teams, the Big Dance – we introduce you to one dark side of that high stakes, competitive, cutthroat sport: Good men who lose their jobs. Exhibit A here at Marist is men’s basketball coach Mike Maker, who on Monday was “relieved of his duties” as part of a “change in leadership.” Late comedian George Carlin, a master of language, would have a field day with these euphemisms. Carlin would probably say: “How about this? Marist fired Mike Maker. Blunt. Brutal. To the point.” Yeah, that’s just me going off on an English language riff. Whatever. Anyway, it is not my job nor is it my place to debate the merits of this decision, especially in a public forum like this blog. The team did not perform well on the court. Multiple losing seasons. In the revved up world of college basketball, that costs coaches – even honorable, upstanding men like Mike Maker – their jobs. What fans and followers of the sport sometimes forget is that, even though these coaches do get paid well, there is a domino effect of unintended consequences. Most of these men have families and lives away from the hardwood. When they get fired, it upends households and sends them into a whirl of confusion and unplanned, unexpected change.

Here at Marist, Coach Maker’s wife, Erica, has been an integral part of our track and cross country family as an assistant coach for nearly two years. Be Better? She has made us all – athletes, coaches, alumni, all of us – better by her graceful presence on a daily basis. Now that her husband has been let go, this obviously makes her ability to stay on as coach at the same school an untenable situation. We had an emotional team meeting last night. There were tears and there were hugs. There were a lot of tears. There was some anger at the situation, sure. But mostly there was love and there were tears. I told the team last night, and I tell the followers of this blog today: Although Erica was part of our program for a short time, the mark she left with all of us was indelible. And we will all take a little bit of her poise, her charm and her coaching brilliance with us moving forward, now and always. Saying goodbye is never easy. In this most unusual of circumstances, it is a bit confusing and extra difficult. We will continue to strive to Be Better, because that’s what we do, and that’s what Erica contributed to our program for the too-brief time she was with us. We wish the Maker family success and we bid them adieu, with love from us all.