Sentinel on Probation for 2021-22 season

[HelenaCat95]

Missoula Sentinel is on probation for the 2021-22 season. They are allowed to participate in the regular season and post season, but must come up with a plan to rectify what put them on probation........but this article doesn't say what that was. hmmmmmm

https://www.montanasports.com/high-scho ... -probation

[TomCat88]

Just saw that. Crazy. I thought they got off easy with the $100 fine a few years ago when they poached that player out of P'Burg/Drummond and it looks like this might just be another slap on the wrist. I'd hate to see these kids punished too harshly, but they did win a title last year, so maybe they should have to sit this one out.

I've heard rumblings about Missoula stacking teams at one school with the talent from all over town.

[kennethnoisewater]

It's a little bit of a joke. I don't think the MHSA can do very much when threatened legally. I wouldn't mind seeing coaches suspended for a season or something, but I like that they don't punish kids for something the adults did. In theory, there are lots of innocent students at Sentinel. There are constant accusations in Missoula of recruiting...Football at Sentinel, basketball at Hellgate. But they're all pretty much rumors. Every time a player transfers you hear chatter about somebody recruiting them, but most of the time the families are reaching out. If anybody is recruiting, it's usually another player or a parent of a player who wants to see the program get better. This track thing was pretty egregious though. They knowingly broke rules. Every track coach knows the rules, and these qualifying standards aren't new anymore.

[nevadacat]

Asking out of curiosity, does this thing happen in other large Montana cities — allegedly?

It’s an open secret it happens here in Vegas, though it was much worse in the 80s and 90s. I’m sure it’s common everywhere.

[Cataholic]

Asking out of curiosity, does this thing happen in other large Montana cities — allegedly?

It’s an open secret it happens here in Vegas, though it was much worse in the 80s and 90s. I’m sure it’s common everywhere.

Missoula has open enrollment which makes this all possible. As I understand it, there are no school boundary lines and all students are allowed to choose which school they go to. This is meant to allow students to pursue their area of interest for education purposes. For example, a student interested in liberal arts would select Hellgate due to their offerings in that area. A student interested in STEM would select one of the other two high schools. This has translated into kids selecting schools based on athletic pursuits.

I am not really clear on the all the specifics, but that was how it was explained to me.

[RickRund]

Asking out of curiosity, does this thing happen in other large Montana cities — allegedly?

It’s an open secret it happens here in Vegas, though it was much worse in the 80s and 90s. I’m sure it’s common everywhere.

Missoula has open enrollment which makes this all possible. As I understand it, there are no school boundary lines and all students are allowed to choose which school they go to. This is meant to allow students to pursue their area of interest for education purposes. For example, a student interested in liberal arts would select Hellgate due to their offerings in that area. A student interested in STEM would select one of the other two high schools. This has translated into kids selecting schools based on athletic pursuits.

I am not really clear on the all the specifics, but that was how it was explained to me.

Interesting...

[Cataholic]

This was a pretty interesting article on a fan’s reaction about the Sentinel - West State Championship game. The guy is a super fan of Missoula Sentinel, but it is hard to tell that they won the game. Amazingly he sees nothing wrong with his monologue.

https://buttesports.com/we-could-all-le ... nP48ms5RFk

I have been an outspoken critic of “bad fans” on this forum. I am sure someone will defend the guy despite the fact that he threw pretty much every fan base and players under the bus to make his point.

Also, given the recent Zac Crews incident, one has to ask if these super fans affect the kids. Have they created a sense of entitlement? They basically recruit football players to go to Sentinel and basketball players to go to Hellgate.

[coloradocat]

This was a pretty interesting article on a fan’s reaction about the Sentinel - West State Championship game. The guy is a super fan of Missoula Sentinel, but it is hard to tell that they won the game. Amazingly he sees nothing wrong with his monologue.

https://buttesports.com/we-could-all-le ... nP48ms5RFk

I have been an outspoken critic of “bad fans” on this forum. I am sure someone will defend the guy despite the fact that he threw pretty much every fan base and players under the bus to make his point.

Also, given the recent Zac Crews incident, one has to ask if these super fans affect the kids. Have they created a sense of entitlement? They basically recruit football players to go to Sentinel and basketball players to go to Hellgate.

Middle aged high school football fans are worst. They just can't get over the fact that they're not in high school any more.

The best parts are when he goes off so hard that his wife interrupts him off screen and he says he's fine and has to respond to what people are saying.

The thing is, it could have been 2 minutes long but he kept going and repeating himself for another 24 minutes. If the video was 2 minutes long it wouldn't have been such a big deal but when you rant for almost half an hour it's going to get a lot of attention.

[ilovethecats]

Man that was a funny listen! Gotta be honest, and maybe this makes me a bad parent, but I wasn’t near as passionate about my own kids teams they played for than this nut is about a high school team! Even if he has a kid on the team he’s awful.

In all my years of watching my kids, coaching my kids, and even a little officiating over the years there was always one constant: terrible parents/fans. It’s ironic this clown doesn’t even realize he’s everything that is wrong about youth sports.

So embarrassing.

[wbtfg]

Man that was a funny listen! Gotta be honest, and maybe this makes me a bad parent, but I wasn’t near as passionate about my own kids teams they played for than this nut is about a high school team! Even if he has a kid on the team he’s awful.

In all my years of watching my kids, coaching my kids, and even a little officiating over the years there was always one constant: terrible parents/fans. It’s ironic this clown doesn’t even realize he’s everything that is wrong about youth sports.

So embarrassing.

Agree....I feel bad for his kid. He is "that guy"

[tdub]

I used to work for Bob Hermes, who ran the little grizzly football program in Missoula and Western Montana Little Guy Wrestling forever. Bob and I are still pretty good friends to this day. I’ll be the first to admit that Bob rubs some people the wrong way in how he does some things. But I know Bob well and his heart was always 100% in the right place in how he tried to run his programs. His programs were built more on participation numbers and not trophies. But I’ve had conversation after conversation with Bob about the views of youth athletics in the development of a kid, and the effects of burnout on young athletes. He literally wrote a book on the topic. It was guys like in this video that created the MYF league in Missoula that idolized their little super stars that ran Bob out of the race.

A lot (absolutely not all) of these people in that program starting putting their kids on these major football star pedestals in 3rd grade! It became a parent run program which is almost always a recipe for not much longevity of a program. Because once little superstar is grown, their interest in the program continuing also goes away. In the video, the guy said his boy will be a senior next year. So after next football season, “Mac Daddy” will disappear too. Unfortunately his kid will be the one dealing with any fallout of the video. If I’m a college coach, unless the kid is head and shoulders better than everyone else, I don’t touch him with a 10-foot pole, knowing this potential is in the background. It’s sad that this stuff exists in youth sports.

[Joe Bobcat]

I feel bad for his whole family.
If anyone knows of a way that I could unsee and unhear this please share that with me.
One thing is certain, that guy can't unsay the multitude of things he shouldn't have said.
Him saying that he might have had a cocktail or 2 was code for: I'm setting up my excuse for doing the stupid thing I'm doing.
The guy claims that he was nothing but respectful and nice to the West players and fans after the game.
I can't help but think he didn't come across as sincere or anything remotely close to what he claims.
It's obvious that he's allowed an awful lot of people to live rent free in his head for a very long time.

[Cataholic]

I used to work for Bob Hermes, who ran the little grizzly football program in Missoula and Western Montana Little Guy Wrestling forever. Bob and I are still pretty good friends to this day. I’ll be the first to admit that Bob rubs some people the wrong way in how he does some things. But I know Bob well and his heart was always 100% in the right place in how he tried to run his programs. His programs were built more on participation numbers and not trophies. But I’ve had conversation after conversation with Bob about the views of youth athletics in the development of a kid, and the effects of burnout on young athletes. He literally wrote a book on the topic. It was guys like in this video that created the MYF league in Missoula that idolized their little super stars that ran Bob out of the race.

A lot (absolutely not all) of these people in that program starting putting their kids on these major football star pedestals in 3rd grade! It became a parent run program which is almost always a recipe for not much longevity of a program. Because once little superstar is grown, their interest in the program continuing also goes away. In the video, the guy said his boy will be a senior next year. So after next football season, “Mac Daddy” will disappear too. Unfortunately his kid will be the one dealing with any fallout of the video. If I’m a college coach, unless the kid is head and shoulders better than everyone else, I don’t touch him with a 10-foot pole, knowing this potential is in the background. It’s sad that this stuff exists in youth sports.

Great post. My experience has been that the Sentinel fans have become those “rotten eggs”. I know a former coach at Sentinel who performed very well, but quit because he could not deal with the parents. In another instance, the Sentinel fans just don’t want to abide by any rules - whether recruiting or in person. We are all familiar with the predetermined “Visitors section” of each high school stadium. Sentinel shows up and decided that it doesn’t apply to them and they would sit behind their kids sideline - right in the middle of the home crowd. That was a recipe for disaster, but they escalated it further by pretty much challenging people in that section. Many of those people identified themselves as players parents or relatives with shirts, buttons, etc. Talk about elevating the kids to “superstar” level and then showing them that the rules don’t apply. Really sad.

[tdub]

I used to work for Bob Hermes, who ran the little grizzly football program in Missoula and Western Montana Little Guy Wrestling forever. Bob and I are still pretty good friends to this day. I’ll be the first to admit that Bob rubs some people the wrong way in how he does some things. But I know Bob well and his heart was always 100% in the right place in how he tried to run his programs. His programs were built more on participation numbers and not trophies. But I’ve had conversation after conversation with Bob about the views of youth athletics in the development of a kid, and the effects of burnout on young athletes. He literally wrote a book on the topic. It was guys like in this video that created the MYF league in Missoula that idolized their little super stars that ran Bob out of the race.

A lot (absolutely not all) of these people in that program starting putting their kids on these major football star pedestals in 3rd grade! It became a parent run program which is almost always a recipe for not much longevity of a program. Because once little superstar is grown, their interest in the program continuing also goes away. In the video, the guy said his boy will be a senior next year. So after next football season, “Mac Daddy” will disappear too. Unfortunately his kid will be the one dealing with any fallout of the video. If I’m a college coach, unless the kid is head and shoulders better than everyone else, I don’t touch him with a 10-foot pole, knowing this potential is in the background. It’s sad that this stuff exists in youth sports.

Great post. My experience has been that the Sentinel fans have become those “rotten eggs”. I know a former coach at Sentinel who performed very well, but quit because he could not deal with the parents. In another instance, the Sentinel fans just don’t want to abide by any rules - whether recruiting or in person. We are all familiar with the predetermined “Visitors section” of each high school stadium. Sentinel shows up and decided that it doesn’t apply to them and they would sit behind their kids sideline - right in the middle of the home crowd. That was a recipe for disaster, but they escalated it further by pretty much challenging people in that section. Many of those people identified themselves as players parents or relatives with shirts, buttons, etc. Talk about elevating the kids to “superstar” level and then showing them that the rules don’t apply. Really sad.

Unfortunately every bigger program has “those” guys. Sentinel’s are just visible now because of the program recent success. They tend to come out of the woodwork following success. Which that in itself speaks volumes about those people. So it’s infecting Sentinel at the moment, but it’ll move onto another program eventually.