Mora coach detracts from his team's 7-0 start

As the PA announcer for Aitkin football, I get to see a lot of things over the course of the season. I see the Gobblers fighting hard to make their mark. I see The Best Student Section in the State make each game a rocking good time. I see (and taste) the excellent pregame food that Peter Lowe cooks at every home game before watching Aitkin’s players and coaching staff work hard to be successful both on and off the field.

I have never seen anything like last Friday, when the Mora coach deliberately walked through the Aitkin football team’s entrance onto the field.

I didn’t actually see this happen as I am all the way across the field while announcing games. However, I heard people talking about it after the game and saw some posts on Facebook, but I didn’t think too much of it. After all, looking at the preview picture on Facebook it seemed like the coach was near the players, not walking through them. Our football fans at Aitkin can be fiercely proud and supportive of our student-athletes. In the news and social media, seeing outraged people is so typical that it doesn’t even warrant a raised eyebrow, so my initial reaction was that maybe we had some salty fans who were embellishing this to make it sound worse than it is.

However, after watching the cell phone footage on Facebook, two things became abundantly clear: The Mora coach deliberately walked through the Aitkin entrance and he is going to be famous, though not in a good way.

Just a week ago a St. Cloud Cathedral player came off the sidelines to tackle a Zimmerman player on what looked to be a late touchdown run. Apparently, the player was frustrated that his team was being shut out and that Zimmerman had just broken another run for a late touchdown.

We expect students to make poor decisions at times and hopefully learn from them. We do not expect a coach, the one who is supposed to be setting a good example, to act like this.

Mora is having an excellent season, rolling out a perfect 7-0 record and No. 3 rank in Class 3A. After watching them play, it is clear that they have a good team. That’s what makes this even more perplexing. Why would a coach get in the way of all the excellent things his team has accomplished so far this year? These actions take the focus off of all that has been achieved by this team and instead creates a distraction.

Full disclosure: As a player and as a coach, there have been times when I have done and said things that I am not particularly proud of. My announcing partner and fellow junior high coach Rob Williams can tell you stories about coaching from our earlier years, but none of those stories involve anything like this that takes the focus from the athletes. Away from where it should be.

This behavior can’t be excused for being “in the heat of the moment” as it was before the game even started. There is literally nothing that can be said to justify this coach, who saw our team entering the field through the tunnel, deliberately walking into and through the stream of players coming onto the field.

“They should have sacked his ass,” one Facebook user commented on the posted video. Almost miraculously, the Aitkin players dodged around him and avoided any collision with the coach. The coach will not be able to dodge his Facebook fame along with calls for his head on a platter. That is sure to continue.

The only thing for this coach to do is apologize profusely for his poor choice and turn the focus back onto his team’s excellent season, which is where it should be.