Women's bball at Ball State

[Zipmeister]

Given the information that I and others had as an average fan at the time, it looked as if coach Kest had gone overboard in her disciplinary actions, and lost not only the players whom she dismissed -- for reasons that remain unreported, but some, including academic stars, who decided they'd rather play in D-2 (or in one case, the SEC) than be what seemed like a victim of the coach's rath.

Well as being someone who was "in-the-know" and not really giving a shit anymore about keeping department secrets (and it has been a few years)... from the best of my memory there was a big house part an an athlete's house. I think it was a b-ball person's house, but to which sport they belonged I do not remember. There were several sport teams represented in addition to wbb including wsoc, v-ball, and a few football players. As the night was getting fun a few (three?) individuals crashed the party. They were not invited and no one knew who they were. One of them (girl I think) got jealous about some flirting between a soccer player and her man or something and a fist fight erupted. They were told to leave and refused. A couple of the football players were able to throw them out of the house and once outside one of these strangers drew a gun and fired shots into the air. The athletes, scared of being caught and in trouble for underage drinking, drinking in season, and whatever else the department/coaches would did not call the police. Neighbors did and the police came, but the athletes continued to try to hide in the house. Obviously it got back to the department and there were numerous suspensions and punishments. The most obvious were the wbb ones because they were still in season and lost some of their better players. From the fight on of the soccer girls had her face (cheek or eye socket) fractured and one of the footballers had a black eye. Not all athletes got into as much trouble because each coach creates their own team rules. Somehow the press didn't get a hold of the story, which made it easy to keep hushed. Again this is from my memory so the minute details are not all there, but that's the jest of the story.

Just goes to show, keep away from women basketball players when they are in season - cause they are trouble.

[GP1]

Your first 2 paragraphs are garbage .. you have no idea how KD or Porter treat their players. Way to make bogus suppositions and statements from your perch in beautiful NC. And KD took over a *decent* team? By what measure was that team decent?Simply uniformed on the first 2 items.Go Zips!

You can suck it if you don't like it. At least my head isn't pearched one inch from my own ass or KDs ass for that matter.KD is a prick and that is what makes him a good coach. If a player doesn't do what he wants, they are on the bench. KD will use players to get back into college coaching (see St. V-M history). I don't have a problem with a guy driven to get what he wants and I think he did the right thing. Porter is driven to win. When it is time to cash in, he will be gone. One year will not matter. Decent team? A good group of young players in Dru, Wood and Travis. Name one player JK had on the team nearly as good as half of one of those guys. Spare me, JK had NOTHING coming into Akron. You like building, that's building. KD had at least the foundation poured. Porter had everything complete except painting the inside of the building. JK took over swamp-land and is turning the program around. Sorry if you disagree.

[GP1]

I love you Z.I.P., but this post is pure 1950s nonsense. Caleb will be gone soon enough. Dambrot wants to be at Akron, but as soon as he can win enough games to make people look past his "issue" at CMU, he will cash in. Let's not be naive. Both of these guys are complete pricks to their players and that is what makes them good coaches. Winning is absolutely in the forefront of everything they do. JK is possible the best coach at Akron.....no, she is the best coach at Akron. Porter took over a winning program (Quite frankly, I watched the final four and I'm not certain how coaching players to bounce the ball off of their heads for 2.5 hours makes a great coach, but maybe I don't know enough about the particulars of soccer). KD took over a decent team with some talent. JK took over a pile of crap.You say a good coach always has the players best interests in mind. Take it from someone who played for our losing football program, winning is in the best interest of the players. It is absolute misery losing game after game and I don't see how that misery is in the best interest of the players. Those young ladies playing basketball are at Akron to win games...period. If they go to class and graduate with straight Cs, even better. I had a friend in college who always said, "C's get degrees". Today that guy is sitting on a pile of cash. All they are asked to do is graduate and play basketball. It was that way in the 1990s...it was that way in the 1980s.....it was that way in the 1970s....it was that way in the 1960s....it was that way in even the great 1950s.If the mindset is it is about the competition and not the winning, that's nonsense as well. If sports are to prepare you for life, shouldn't an employer hire an employee that won and showed positive results in lieu of losers who show no results? Driving a team to win and then winning creats an attitude in a player that teaches them how to produce results and not process. Holding hands and singing "We Are The World" is process, not results. In closing, it's OK to confess that JK is a good coach and doing a great job with the WBB program.

GP1, best piece you have ever written. I, too, know about playing for a losing college football team. Losing sucks.This evening I looked in the women's media guide and found that last year was Kest's best year as an Akron coach.She posted an 11-19, 6-10 MAC record. So, for the record, with ten games remaining the Lady Zips are on the verge of producing coach Kest's best year. Currently the Ladies are 11-9 and 5-2 in the MAC. The Ladies shouldfinish in the upper half. Quite an achievement for a once morbund program.While coach Kest may and probably should bolt at some future date, I do not believe that it is any sooner than twoyears away. Kest probably wants that MAC championship and a trip to the NCAA on her resume. She earned it.

Thank you for your intelligence and open mind. Can't say the same for others.

[72 Roo]

Some of the so-called information on this thread is just opinion and nothing more, especially when it is about what coaches intend to do with their career. To say Porter will use us and his players fear him is pure bulls__t. He could have gone and didn't. He and his wife want to be here. His players respect him. I know them and they defend any attack on him. Sure he'll go one day, but not until he has taken the program to be consistently at the top. KD is doing his best and has raised the level of the program. The cynicism voiced against him is pathetic in that it is so filled with speculation and forgets the facts of what he has done and committed to do. Coach Gest could be a great coach, I suppose. I wish her the best but we don't have to build her up by cutting down all other coaches. Let each stand on their record, their actions and the growth of their program. Not someone's bitter opinion.

[Zip Watcher]

Your first 2 paragraphs are garbage .. you have no idea how KD or Porter treat their players. Way to make bogus suppositions and statements from your perch in beautiful NC. And KD took over a *decent* team? By what measure was that team decent?Simply uniformed on the first 2 items.Go Zips!

You can suck it if you don't like it. At least my head isn't pearched one inch from my own ass or KDs ass for that matter.KD is a prick and that is what makes him a good coach. If a player doesn't do what he wants, they are on the bench. KD will use players to get back into college coaching (see St. V-M history). I don't have a problem with a guy driven to get what he wants and I think he did the right thing. Porter is driven to win. When it is time to cash in, he will be gone. One year will not matter. Decent team? A good group of young players in Dru, Wood and Travis. Name one player JK had on the team nearly as good as half of one of those guys. Spare me, JK had NOTHING coming into Akron. You like building, that's building. KD had at least the foundation poured. Porter had everything complete except painting the inside of the building. JK took over swamp-land and is turning the program around. Sorry if you disagree.

To be clear, I don't disagree with any assessment you make about JK.My issue with your drivel is your assessment of how other coaches treat their players, because you have clearly never traveled with the teams nor gone to a practice to watch the interaction directly. Seeing one game at Winthrop live, and 2 games in Cary makes you the last person here with any real sense whatsoever of how either coach treats his players.These guys (and JK) demand a lot of their players, and they're all getting results.

[Dave in Green]

Heaven forbid that we should go back to the 1950s! Back then, if you wanted to watch a good war of words or pushing match, you had to walk all the way to the local elementary school playground to watch the kids squabbling.The modern world is so much more convenient. You can log on to a forum on any computer and watch anonymous kids of all ages beating on their chests and proclaiming they are lords of the playground and everyone else is an idiot.This is progress.