Coach Leta Andrews and TrueHoop

It is because of American Tiger Moms like Leta Andrews that the Korean still has faith in America:

GRANBURY, Tex. — At 7:15 a.m. on Monday, the girls’ basketball team at Granbury High assembled for practice. As always, shirts had to be tucked in, hair pulled back. If a shoelace came untied, it meant running the bleachers. Questions had two acceptable answers: Yes ma’am and no ma’am.

Sure, Coach Leta Andrews had her lighter moments. She might show up at practice in a crazy wig; once she even wore a bikini. But joking around is not how she got her name on the local water tower for winning more basketball games than any high school coach in the country — 1,346 victories, an average of 27 a season, in her 49-year career.

...

“She’s a tough coach,” Jordan said. “She doesn’t let you slack off. Sometimes she makes us cry, but we know it’s for the good. I can’t picture high school without her.”

Former players stay in touch. In 1996, Andrews traveled to Atlanta to cheer on Amy Acuff, who had played for her championship team in Corpus Christi and was now competing in the Olympic high jump. Three years ago, shortly after having stents implanted in a blocked artery, Andrews drove eight hours to attend the funeral of Cerny’s mother.

Acuff, a four-time Olympian, said: “I think people often are afraid to discipline kids; they feel it is too harsh or that the kid won’t love you. But I think the root of respect and love is a person expecting and demanding that you be as good as you can be every single moment.”

Andrews longs for more diversity on her team and more gym rats, players who want to win as badly as she does. “Don’t run around like a chicken with your head cut off,” she scolded her offense Monday. But she is not ready to retire. The only win that is important, she said, is the next one.

“I’m not ready to turn this over to these younger coaches,” Andrews told her husband recently. “They just don’t demand enough.”

Texas Coach Demands Best, Has Record to Prove It [New York Times] (emphasis the Korean's).

After hearing so much whining about Tiger Mom's "emotional abuse," it was so nice to know there are still people in America who get it. But over at TrueHoop (one of the Korean's favorite blogs,) Henry Abbott had a different take.

More after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.




Henry was troubled by Coach Andrews' strictness:

Exacting is one way to describe it. Another way to describe it is child abuse. I'm sure there is a line between that, and, say the demonic Robert DeNiro character in "This Boy's Life" (PG-13), but it's hard to know precisely where it is. Nevertheless, that kind of parenting is cited as a positive example in how Texas high-school girls are taught, in 2011, to play basketball?

...

What's weird to me is the conviction -- shared by so many -- that young basketball players need to receive punishments every day; even when they aren't actually doing anything wrong.

Can you imagine if they taught math and science this way? With punishments for almost every student almost every class? With routine tears? With no one but the teacher allowed to speak?

The last phrase caught the Korean's eyes, so he sent Henry an email (which was in turn quoted in TrueHoop):

I am writing because your latest post caught my eyes, especially this passage: "Can you imagine if they taught math and science this way? With punishments for almost every student almost every class? With routine tears? With no one but the teacher allowed to speak?"

This is EXACTLY how math and science are taught in East Asian countries. I emigrated to America when I was 16, after finishing 9th grade in Korea. (I am 30 years old now.) I was astonished to find out just how soft and backward American math and science education was. An average 10th grader at my school was learning math concepts that I finished learning in 6th grade. And the available data bears out my experience -- students from East Asian countries lead the world in math and science, while America comes in near last in the developed world.

My opinion is that tough lessons are accepted for a reason -- they certainly did produce Leta Andrews, whose result speaks for itself.

Henry replied with the crucial question:

My tale is really not about optimal parenting, or even optimal coaching.

It's about inconsistency in what is considered decent and acceptable. Is it okay for a teacher to make kids cry routinely or not? I'm saying that it's odd that sports bring out an appreciation of harshness and punishments that we don't have in other parts of our lives. That hypothetical math teacher would likely be fired. But that real coach is celebrated. My point is: What's the difference? That's a question for all of us.

That's a great question, and a great point. (Bold emphasis is the Korean's.) It is something that requires thought. We clearly want harshness and punishments -- which can be otherwise termed "toughness" -- in teaching children sports. Then why don't we want the same toughness in teaching other things? Why are we so terrified of quote-unquote "emotional abuse"?

We know that what makes a sports team win and what makes students do better in math and science are the same things -- discipline, effort, practice. We feel unhappy when American students come in last in the developed world in math and science, just as much as we feel unhappy to see our sports team lose. We love coaches who instill toughness. Yet we would flip out of our shit if a teacher humiliated students or made students run endless wind sprints for not doing the best they can in math exams.

What's the difference? There should be no difference. Americans have to start realizing that.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.