Lisa Green
Published: Auguest 23 2004
There are some people who equate success with winning, and there are those who do not.
This past summer, Samuel Bearman, a local attorney in Pensacola and former PJC Booster Club member, along with Booster Club member Clyde Anderson, asked the Board of Trustees to adopt a policy that would ensure “that the men’s basketball team wins with the reasonable regularity established by the teams between 1973 and the late 1990s.”
Last year marked the 10th anniversary of PJC’s only national championship in basketball. Under the leadership of Coach Paul Swanson, the team has not made it to the state championship tournament in six years. This, according to Bearman, is unacceptable.
In a recent viewpoint written to the Pensacola News Journal, he stated, “Attendance is down, interest level is down, excitement level is down, and the Booster Club is nonexistent.”
Some students agree.
“Maybe if the team made it to the playoffs, people would get excited about it,” Dwight Potter, a student at PJC, said. He added that the two times he has attended a game, he found that the crowd mostlywas made up of people from the community rather than students.
“There doesn’t really seem to be that much interest from the students.”
“I would like to get the student body more involved,” Swanson said, but adds that overall, “attendance is good.”
“People have lost interest because of the mediocrity of the team,” Bearman said. He believes that a winning tradition has been established over the years, and currently that tradition is not being upheld.
Bearman feels it is the responsibility of the coach to maintain that winning tradition.
”Coach Swanson knew that the ability to win games was a factor when he was hired,” he said. “If all he has to do is make sure his players go to class and look good in the community, I have to say he has the easiest job in the world.”
While it is true that teams have not advanced to championship tournaments during Swanson’s tenure, he has posted winning seasons in all seven years of coaching at the college. His coaching record is 130-78 at PJC.
Swanson’s belief that academics are equally if not more important than winning is supported by college President Tom Delaino.
“The point of the school’s athletic programs is to support PJC’s academic programs,” Delaino said at the board meeting.
“The fun part is winning; the value is in the preparation,” Swanson said. “At this level of college basketball, you work on the development of the players. It’s a different outlook. You can try to develop them socially and make sure they get their degree. It’s not about making money for the players here at this level. I want them to be ambassadors of PJC. That is what we are about at this level, good public ambassadors.”
In defense of Swanson, Randy Hepworth wrote a letter to the Pensacola News Journal.
“Winning was nice, but I wouldn’t trade my education for it,” he said.
Hepworth, a former PJC basketball player, was a member of the 1993 championship team.
That is just the point, according to Bearman – who said in order to have a successful, winning team, you have to sacrifice your education, or the quality of the players? Bearman suggested that a player without the ideal background, may be the “perfect recruit” for Swanson’s “player development.”
Consider how much more of an impact a coach could have on a player who might not fit the description of a “good public ambassador.”
But, Swanson says the media and the public’s appetite for stories with shock value have changed the way things are done in sports.
“There are things that used to be swept under the rug, or covered up, that are no longer tolerated. It becomes front page news because everyone wants to have a story,” Swanson said.
“If a player gets arrested for a crime, the lead in the article will not say, ‘Will Preston, son of Josh and Melissa Preston’, it will say ‘Will Preston, a PJC basketball player, was arrested.’
“That’s why it’s so important to not settle for players who only play good, but to look for those that will benefit the school and the team, someone who can fit that description of an ambassador for the school.”
In the opinion of some observers, the basketball scandal that erupted on the Baylor University campus in Waco, Texas last year illustrates how some coaches can disregard standards and rules to promote their own agendas instead of maintaining the standards set by the college.
The highly publicized incident, which involved one basketball player killing another, has led Baylor University to make changes in its recruitment process. University President Robert B. Sloan Jr. said that the objective is to recruit student athletes who are well rounded, academically motivated and socially conscious.
Granted, Baylor University and Pensacola Junior College involve two very different levels of college basketball, but the bottom line remains the same, say those who take Swanson’s side.
“Having these men be successful academically i what we are here for,” Delaino said.
He firmly believes in incorporating sports into the overall mission at PJC and not changing the school’s standards in order to have a state championship.
The board of trustees will conduct a workshop to further explain the role of the athletics program and how it fits within the college’s mission.