Quote:

. . . First, what would I do? I'd ask the person being hired in why it is that they felt it was necessary to make those changes in order to accomplish what they were being hired to do. If they convinced me, I'd change the name. If they didn't convince me, I'd tell them so and wish them good luck and go on to my next candidate.

Now, what would I not do? I wouldn't tell them "no" and then sit around complaining that they wouldn't do the work anyway.

If you read what I've written, I have no issue with Summerville keeping their name, color, doing daddy-ball, or whatever -- I just have a problem with those getting on and complaining that people are going to "walk away" from SSC. The two parties couldn't agree on terms. Let's move on.

Clear enough?



Hyslop was asked why it was necessary to change the name and colors to implement "the CESA model." No answer was given.


Hyslop was also asked why the vote on amending the SSC Constitution couldn't come 1 year or even 6 months into the 3 year management contract. No answer was given.

The ONLY explanation given at the membership meeting was offered by a SSC board member who speculated that perhaps it would cause problems for Hyslop and Tormey should a Summerville team that they "managed" defeat a CESA team unless that Summerville team was branded CESA and wearing CESA colors. I realize that at the challenge & classic levels that might seem unlikely to happen anytime soon. Clearly though there are academy and rec teams in SSC that could and would defeat similarly situated CESA teams on a regular basis. And although the SSC Board member presented this argument as speculation I am not so sure that it wasn't the proverbial nail hitting head.

As I posted earlier, there appeared to be 2/3 support for the changes once the proposal was changed from CESA-Charleston to CESA-Summerville. Hyslop essentially talked a handful of people out of supporting them - myself included. Any question he did not want to answer, he would refer to as "a loaded question" and then talk for 5 minutes or so about the CESA training model without answering the question. I am not kidding when I suggested that the amendments very likely would have passed if Hyslop had stayed in Greenville and let Fleming represent him at the meeting.

Finally, I am pretty confident there was not a person in the room who voted against the amendments because they favored untrained parent volunteer coaches ("daddy-ball") over paid professionals. That's absurd. If there were any "unspoken agendas" in the room, I would suggest one possibility: There are still people (a minority to be sure) in SSC who regret that the once-promising SSC - Bridge F.A. relationship has soured to the degree that it has. There are certainly parents whose younger kids play for SSC and older kids play for Bridge. Brisson, Birchwood, Phillips, and Hoerner definitely still have their fans in Summerville. They are all consummate professionals and I suspect very few CESA coaches can truly be considered to be significantly superior "on the pitch" coaches. There may have been some administrative and training issues during some of these folks' tenures at SSC and Bridge but they are all top-notch professionals at match time. I also suspect that Bridge F.A. had a LOT to do with Hyslop and Tormey wanting to establish a beachhead in the Lowcountry through SSC. Like him or not, Clark Brisson has built in B.F.A. the closest thing to a rival that CESA has. And if Hyslop and Tormey do choose not to manage SSC thereby "retreating" to the upstate, Bridge F.A. is the immediate beneficiary of such a decision.