Congratulations to El Dorado coach Stephen Harshaw. I'm not congratulating the coach on losing 57-45 at Star City on Friday. But, I do want to shake his hand for not being afraid to lose.
Coach Harshaw knew exactly what he was walking into when he took his unbeaten, unchallenged Lady Wildcats to Star City. The Lady Bulldogs are a perennial power, capable of beating any team in any classification. They are especially tough at home with Coach Becky Brown, who has been there for 18 years.
When El Dorado's schedule was released, Coach Harshaw was criticized by some for scheduling the trip to Star City.
"You can't win there," said one critic. "He's going to get screwed." "Why would you take your team into a pit like that?"
Those were just a few of the comments I heard.
My responses were always the same - "so what."
So what if you can't win there. So what if the officials screw you over. That's exactly why you take your team into that type of environment early in the season.
At some point, the Lady Wildcats will have to win a game in a difficult environment. At some point, the team will have to overcome bad officiating. There will come a time when every call goes the other way.
That's life and basketball.
Why not get used to it?
One of my pet peeves is coaches who care too much about their won-loss record. They carefully schedule tournaments where they know they can win without too much of a challenge. That's fine. But the only problem is those teams don't win state championships.
To win a state championship, your team will have to overcome some adversity. It will have to fight through a hostile crowd or play through biased referees.
If a loss in Star City in early December will help El Dorado win at Mountain Home in March, then this was a great job by Coach Harshaw.
Might as well congratulate him, now.
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