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Scott
Sandsberry
Yakima Herald-Republic
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Records Made to Be Broken,
Games
Made to Be Played the Right Way
Records are, for good or for bad, as much a part of
sports as final scores.
As fans, we love seeing records set, because they make us feel that we were
witness to something that had never been done before. Something special.
For it to be special, though, it can’t be pursued. It must be achieved in
passing, like a roadside marker that tells you how many miles you’ve
traveled on your journey. That’s why we so admired Cal Ripken, because he
plodded right past his iron-man record of baseball longevity to a few
hundred more consecutive days on on the job. He didn’t take a break two days
later because he had the record. All he’d done was pass a roadside marker.
On Saturday in the SunDome, we were witness to a record pursued with the
best of intentions ... and to the worst of ramifications. Feelings were
hurt. Things were yelled. Two decent, principled men all but erected a wall
between each other that will have to be dismantled, brick by brick. And a
game got lost in the shuffle.
In the pursuit.
Here, in a nutshell, is what happened:
Midway through the fourth quarter of the Class 1A boys tournament game for
fourth and seventh places, King’s coach Marv Morris was told that his
all-state guard, Chris Faidley, had eight 3-pointers, tying the tournament
record for most 3-pointers in a game; one more to break it. Morris then told
Faidley he needed one for the record, and told the other players in the
game.
Over the final three minutes, the King’s players on the court did everything
they could to get Faidley the record. First it was picks and passes. Then,
as the seconds ticked away, it was intentional fouls and timeouts to stop
the clock.
It began to get kind of tacky.
The game had been all but over long before; Freeman had lost its best
player, guard Pat Love, to injury two days earlier and trailed by 28 points
going into the fourth quarter. And yet here was Faidley, the best guard in
the 1A ranks, playing with four subs, still launching 3-pointers in a
blowout game, with his teammates running interference in shallow pursuit of
what, in this context, would be a pointless record.
Or, at least, that’s what it looked like to those on the Freeman side of the
stands, as evidenced by the boos and epithets shouted down. It clearly
looked that way to Scotties coach Mike Thacker, who with a minute left in
the game stood at his end of the scorer’s table to shout at Morris on the
other end.
After the game, Thacker all but tried to get out of shaking Morris’s hand.
So, either Morris is a cheap record-chaser or Thacker is a rotten sport,
right?
Of course not. It’s not that simple, of course. It never is. In this passion
play about principle, let’s consider the principals:
• King’s coach Marv Morris is not remotely the type of guy to embarrass an
opponent, and he’s had plenty of opportunities. In the early 1990s he
coached a powerhouse Shorecrest team (one that would ultimately play for the
3A
title) that was light years ahead of most of its regular-season opponents.
But he had a rule: Never beat a team by 30 or more. Just don’t let it
happen. Pull the dogs off. Do whatever you have to do, just don’t beat a
team by 30. Just not right.
In one game, his team was up high-50s to low-20s going into the fourth
period, and he told his defenders to anchor themselves in the paint, put
their hands up and let the other team shoot. A kid on the other team made
five 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, and the next day’s newspaper made a
big deal of that kid’s performance, headline and photo, in the valiant
comeback ... which was still a big Shorecrest victory.
The next day, three different players brought the article to Morris,
essentially saying, We’re TOO nice. We let that kid do that. Morris’s
response, more or less: “That kid will have a wonderful memory all his life.
He’ll probably show that story and that picture to his kids and his
grandkids. And you still got to win the game. We’re still undefeated in
league. Whose shoes would you rather be in?”
• Chris Faidley is an amazing shooter, yes; that’s a given. Going into the
fourth quarter, he had 38 points on 14-for-18 shooting, including 8-for-11
on
3-pointers.
He is also a nice kid and, all recent apparent evidence to the contrary, the
epitome of a team player. In last year’s semifinals, he scored 27 of his
team’s 42 points. In the championship game, with Seattle Christian focused
on
stopping him, he dished off at every double-team and scored just 8. His team
won, and that was what counted. Faidley’s grin was as big as if he’d scored
50.
And for the first four minutes of the fourth quarter Saturday against
Freeman, before he knew he had tied the record, Faidley didn’t take a single
shot. He knew he had a ton of points, knew the game was decided, and was
content to set up his teammates.
When Morris told him he needed one for the record and to go for it, he did
what any kid would do. He went for it. After a couple of minutes of that,
when it was obvious the Freeman side thought this was a cheap move, Faidley
felt uncomfortable it. He told Morris so. But Morris told him it was OK, and
certainly his teammates all wanted to help him get the record.
“I know Mr. Morris didn’t mean to offend anybody,” Faidley said. “I thought
he showed a lot of generosity to me, giving me the opportunity. We weren’t
trying to run up the score or make anybody feel bad. I don’t want anybody to
think badly of Mr. Morris for it. I’ll defend him to the day I die.”
• On the other bench, Freeman coach Mike Thacker was indeed taking offense.
He’s a big believer in team ball. He believes in Duke coach Mike
Krzyzewski’s analogy of a team as a fist — each player being like one finger
on the hand, and only when you have all five players working together can
you
make a fist.
When he saw King’s players intentionally fouling his guys to stop the clock,
calling time outs, going completely away from team ball just to set Faidley
up for a record shot, it made his blood boil.
“In 22 years of coaching at two different levels, A and 3A, in all that time
I’ve never seen that,” he said after the game. “I don’t have a problem with
going for a record, but fouling, calling time outs, doing whatever you can
to
set him up?”
Clearly, Thacker is convinced he would never do the same thing, in the same
situation, as Morris did.
“Doing something like that,” he said, “takes the focus away from what this
game’s all about. As teachers, as coaches, as administrators, we’re all
supposed to be doing what’s best for kids ... not kid.”
OK. Now let’s go into that gray area. From Morris’ perspective, the game was
already decided, and letting one great player go for a record wasn’t dissing
the other team. In his eyes, he did it right: He pulled the other starters,
letting Faidley go for the record with the back-ups. He could, after all,
have put his other starters in and really gone for it.
“You have to give your kid a chance to set a record if he’s got a chance,”
Morris says. “If I was a player and didn’t have that chance, I’d think he
(the coach) cheated me.”
Instead, Thacker feels like his players were cheated. Dissed. It’s like a
baseball player stealing second when his team’s up eight runs in the sixth
inning: You’re showing up the team that’s down. You don’t do that — and
that, to him, is what Morris did.
But all Morris did was try to give a great player a great memory to tell his
grandkids about, like that kid who shot the five 3-pointers in the fourth
quarter that night a decade ago.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Both ... and both.
Records should be set within the course of the game, within the flow of the
contest. The record Faidley tied — and never did break, by the way — was set
by Ephrata’s Travis King in 1992 against Colfax, a war in which every King
3-pointer was needed. King got them in the flow of the game.
So did Faidley; he deserved to tie that record. The ninth trey, had it come,
would not have come the right way. And those who saw it would remember that.
Faidley, too, would remember that. This turned out the way it should have.
No. Check that. It didn’t. The way it should have gone was demonstrated in
Saturday’s very next game, the girls’ game for third and sixth places.
Onalaska’s Alida Bower went into the final half of that game needing three
3-pointers to tie the single-tournament record for most treys.
Her coach found out at halftime.
Her father, the boys coach, found out at halftime.
Neither one told her. They let things play out. Bower didn’t get the record
— missed it by one — but both the coach and the father felt the same way. If
it was going to happen, it was going to happen within the framework of the
game itself.
Now that was something special. ©
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properties of the Yakima Herald-Republic.
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Faidley Fallout
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Records made to be broken, games made to be played the right way.
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Jimm Ratt weighs in
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Record-tying timeline |
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