SACCO: The King never saw it coming

Betcha King Larry Landes and his court of good ol’ boy jesters didn’t expect this coming.
Betcha they never thought for a second that Tom Cummings, the man who will take over the wrestling program at Fort Defiance for longtime coach Terry Waters, would admit that, yeah, this program kind of needs Waters.
That’s the only way to see Cummings’ “olive branch” offer to Waters, a man who could wash his hands of the program (like a few parents and fans have claimed to have done already) and nobody would blame him.
“I know there is no love loss between Terry [Waters] and Fort,” Cummings told The News Virginian reporter Corine Gatti. “But I want to extend an olive branch to him and work with him and [the Battlefield Wrestling Club] program. Maybe I can offer him assistance, or vice-versa.”
There it is. The new coach is approaching the coach Fort Defiance kicked to the curb in an effort to keep things from getting out of hand. Just a tad too late, but that’s not Cummings’ fault.
All this guy did was see a wrestling job open at a school where he was already an assistant coach and figure that, yeah, since he was a pretty decent high school wrestler (won a state title at Fauquier) and sniffed a mat or two in college at James Madison University, he might as well go for it.
And, as a guy who’s been around student athletes and recently graduated one of his own from Fort, you got to believe that Cummings knows the bond good coaches form with good athletes. Maybe that’s why a guy who hasn’t even been on the job for a week reached out to the coach his wrestlers will probably still affectionately call “C-Dubs.”
Sadly, the Landes-led administration at Fort missed its opportunity to turn the tide in this mess. It’s simple, really. All they had to do was tell the wanting public (and, trust us, plenty of people still want to know) why Waters’ contract was not renewed in June. In this day and age where those suspected of any crime are tried and convicted in the court of Internet-comment making, silence in any case — even if it is to avoid the dreaded “L” word (that’s lawsuit, folks) — is usually detrimental to all parties involved. When nobody knows anything, that’s how opinions are formed and that’s when weary (and suspect-filled) eyes glance back and forth.
Instead all the administration did was hold a fluff-filled meeting June 16, where no questions were answered and parents left angrier than when they entered.
Of course, during this meeting, Landes was quick to inform everyone how it works at Fort.
“This is not a democracy,” he told parents who questioned the move. “This meeting was not to entertain input from the community.”
How silly. Why would taxpayers who pay for schools be expected to have a say in what happens at the school they trust their sons and daughters in for eight hours a day? I know, we’re all stupid for asking.
So King Larry waved his scepter, crushed some high-school aged hearts (high school kids, for crying out loud!) and quickly remade Fort Defiance’s bed.
Sadly, Cummings is the one who now has to lie in it and nobody who extends an olive branch like he did Monday deserves that.