MIDDLETOWN ? Appropriately, Mike Mullin discussed basketball at Middletown High School in a corner of a Hidden Valley Lake coffee shop that in a matter of days would go out of business.
As the Mustangs” head varsity coach, Mullin was going out of business, too.
The difference was that the coffee shop was closed because not enough people frequented the place. As he announced earlier this season, Mullin was resigning after six years as varsity coach largely because too many people — read players” parents — were too frequently sticking their nose into his business and were overheard being critical of his coaching.
Never mind that the 52-year-old coach”s system produced two league championships ? including the season just ended, a most unlikely development for a team that plainly couldn”t shoot straight. Tenacity, not marksmanship, was its strength.
Mullin”s teams also made three postseason playoff appearances and won the Record-Bee Hoop Classic in three of his six years with perfect, 4-0 records.
The outgoing head coach praised the Middletown administration for its support and was careful not to say that caustic parents were the only reason he chose to resign when he did. But he also said that if the badmouthing hadn”t been so rampant he might have stayed a couple of more years.
“It was fun until … well, I felt there is a lack of parent support these days,” Mullin said. “I think they feel they”ve got the right to express their opinions, but they really need to keep their opinions to themselves.
“It”s not unique to me,” he added. “Every coach you talk to has issues with parents. But for me, there were probably more (criticisms) this year ? in statements made out loud during games to approaching me privately during practices. The thing that bothers me is it isn”t the kids who aren”t playing whose parents are complaining. They”ve been great, The parents of kids who ARE playing have been the most difficult to deal with.”
The nature of the complaints Mullin heard included such issues as why kids weren”t starting, not supporting the kid enough, who he subs into games and when, the offense he”s running and what he does on defense.
“But parents are not at all the practices, they”re not in the huddles, they”re not in the locker room, they don”t know what”s going on, they don”t know what kids tell you in the huddle,” he said. “They feel they have a right to be boisterous to the referees, the coaches and sometimes the players. So they put their opinions out there.”
Mullin concedes he is not a perfect coach. Sometimes, he says, he may over-coach or lose patience when he sees a player make the same mistake time and again.
But there is nothing in Middletown — and indeed the spectrum of high school basketball in Lake County — that would attract exceptional coaches in the way that, say, the “heartland” of schoolboy basketball would. This season, not one of the county”s five varsity teams had a winning record. Under such conditions, a man or woman who would invest time away from his business — in Mullin”s case the Whispering Pines Water Company — and several thousand dollars from his own personal funds, and do that for 12 years overall, is as good as you”re going to get. Plus, Mullins is a home boy, who grew up in the south county and graduated from Lower Lake.
“I have confidence in my coaching and I think I”m a good coach,” Mullin said. “My record overall is under .500 (81-83 overall, 28-22 in league play), but to be upfront I probably have a couple of good years left in me.
“I don”t want to overemphasize and say that I”m leaving just because of the parents, but what put me over the edge is that I just wasn”t having fun anymore,” he continued. “We won the Record-Bee tournament and I felt like we won nothing. Maybe one or two parents congratulated us when we won the league. I don”t need a pat on the back, but … you don”t get support.”
Mullin began coaching at the middle school level 12 years ago when he was 40. Together with assistant Tom Knowles, he advanced to the junior varsity and then to the varsity. Four seasons ago, his team finished 23-6.
He has not closed the door to coaching entirely. “Down the road,” he conceded, “I would have no problem applying for a job. But the way it stands right now my coaching days are over.
“Everyone tells me don”t take it personal and I”m not,” he added. “I just feel I have a right to step down and feel good about stepping down.”
Mullin has no opinion about who should succeed him. “I only hope the parents will support the next guy,” he avered.
Does he think they will?
Mullin thought for a moment. “I”ve never had a year when I didn”t have an issue with a parent,” he said. “That”s not going to change.”
