Published: 10:02 AM, Fri Jun 25, 2010
Shugar: Lumberton coach learns there's not much sensitivity on the Internet
Today, I join Mike Brill in cursing the Internet.
Now, don't get this 29-year-old guy wrong, I love the Internet. Facebook keeps me in touch with friends and family members. I can't imagine doing my job without the fact checking Google provides. But those powers can run amuck, as the Lumberton coach learned Tuesday.
Monday I wrote a story about how the Pirates football program lost rising-senior lineman James "Rod" Sanderson to a blocked carotid artery on June 17. The death had nothing to do with football. It was an inexplicable medical issue that snuffed out a quiet, hard working kid at the age of 17.
Toward the end of the interview, I asked Brill, a coaching veteran of 28 years, how many kids he's lost. He told me 13. Most died in car wrecks, a few were even murdered and a handful lost battles with cancer or other illnesses.
None of them died with football helmets on their heads. None of them died because of his personal negligence.
They, like Sanderson, were victims of life's circumstances. Some had even passed after graduating from school; yet he still counts them. Because once you play football for Brill, you've got another father for life.
"I treat every player like they're my sons," Brill said. "If they need money, if they need help, they know (my wife) Beth and I are going to be there for them."
I used the number in the story to set up a quote about how Brill copes with sad situations such as Sanderson's death. He told me of a conversation with his mother back when he first had a player die.
"I was going to get out of coaching, but she had a long talk with me," Brill said. "She said, 'When the good Lord goes to the rose garden, he doesn't pick a weed. He gets the best flower out there. God just needed him more than we did.'
"That's what I believe now, and that's what got me through this time."
That same quote turned up in a story on the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call's Web site entitled "Death count hits 13 for football coach." The piece, filed under staff writer Nick Fierro's byline, contained no new information and cited my story as the main source.
As a professional sportswriter since 2003, this raised a few questions in my mind. Why would readers in Allentown, Pa., care about a football player's death more than 500 miles away? Why would they turn such a small fact into such an incendiary headline?
I called the newspaper to find out, speaking to Deputy Editor Terry Rang and Fierro. Rang didn't know about the story, but she was gracious and clearly concerned about the situation.
Fierro was surprised and he called Brill to apologize. He also changed the headline atop the story to "Death haunts NC football coach." To him, the loss of 13 players was high, so he admitted to focusing on the fact. He's been put in charge of surfing for interesting sports news across the country and posting it to the paper's website, and that's all he intended to do.
It wasn't his goal to fan the flames the Brill family has felt since my story hit the web. Message board posters also fixated on the number, calling him "kid killer" or "the coach of death." Online, where everyone can hide behind a screen name or an avatar, even a coach's pain is fair game.
"Now, because of the Internet, you have to respond to it sometimes," Brill said. "I have to handle the situation with kids' gloves. That's when I just think back to the old days when I didn't have to worry about it."
Brill came home Tuesday evening to a living room filled with friends and family on computers wading through this comment mess. He's glad his two girls, Logan and Elizabeth, are away at church camp and unable to pick up the harassing phone calls he's received at his house.
Anybody who knows Brill understands the love that exists between him and his players. In fact, "I love you," is a commonly heard phrase during his football practices. Before his seniors graduate, Brill teaches them a secret hand signal that speaks to a bond only he and they understand.
Loss has taught Brill that nothing is guaranteed in this life. As I listened to him recant the different ways his players died, I learned about the pain he carries with him every day. Yet he still soldiers on, teaching boys how to play football and grow up to become men.
Now there's something that doesn't require a Google search to tell me it should be respected.
Staff writer Paul Shugar can be reached at shugarp@fayobserver.com or 486-3513.