Coaches are confronted with this dilemma every season, in every sport: Policing the action of their own student athletes.
Teenagers are every bit full of ambition, and sometimes mischief, too. Coaches want to run good programs, need to run quality outfits. But every coach expects players to adhere to rules.
If they don't? The good coaches - the quality ones who understand the value of accountability - make the player sit. Nothing stings an athlete more than having to miss a game.
It can be difficult to come to such a decision, because sometimes the mistake of a few costs the rest of the team. It can be emotional. But rules are rules.
On Friday, Granite Bay football coach Ernie Cooper confirmed that he would sit nine varsity players for tonight's Sierra Foothill League game against Oakmont for violating team rules. None of the students was suspended from school or jailed, but Cooper said he and his coaching staff decided punishment was indeed in order.
And another thing about suspensions. Rumors fly. The word suspension comes out and we get flooded with e-mails that the players must have been involved with theft, assault, drunken driving, etc.
"They're all great kids and good students but they broke a team rule,'' Cooper said.
It happens all over the region, from city schools, to those in the hills. Sometimes we only hear about it when suspensions include ranked teams, like Granite Bay, which owned The Bee's No. 1 ranking for eight weeks before losing to rival Roseville on Friday.
And it's not just a boys issue, either, where common sense goes to the gutter and rules are broken.
The Bear River girls basketball team - the most storied girls program in the section - had to terminate the 2007-08 season after 10 of the team's 11 players violated the school's student-athlete code. It broke the heart of Bear River athletic director Duwaine Ganskie, the former coach who steered the program to greatness. But rules are rules.
Ganskie said last season, "It's a tough decision. But we're required as administrators to follow the code like the players. We're not here to punish the kids. We're here to educate the student-athletes to be good citizens, and adhering to our policies is part of the process."
He speaks truth. So does Cooper.
@Nyx.CommentBody@