Blame does not usually belong to one individual.

Oftentimes, it ends up on the shoulders of a person whose control only goes so far.

I don’t like blame the coach mentality, but maybe more than that, I don’t understand it.

After the men’s basketball team lost 89-80 to Maryville University, I saw a comment on Facebook stating the university should go in a different direction in regards to coaching.

My first problem is the men’s basketball team is currently 16-9. That is not a bad record. The team is unfortunately 8-7 in GLVC play, but that is still an above .500 record.

Based purely on games won vs games lost, the way the season looks does not constitute a coaching change.

But more than just the team’s record backs up my point.

Coaches coach, players play

No member of the coaching staff is physically on the court boxing out, grabbing rebounds, shooting threes or making crucial free throws. They can only do so much before it’s out of their hands and into the player’s.

The coaches can harp it in practice and in the huddle. But out on the court, the players have the responsibility to execute.

I’m not saying there is no chance a play failed because the coach set it up badly. It’s more likely that once on the court, the play was not executed the way it should have been.

Good when winning

When a team wins, the coach is often called good. It shouldn’t be based solely on wins and losses when deciding how to define a coach.

The star player on a losing team doesn’t automatically get branded a bad player. The 20 points they score a game saves them from that.

Don’t shoot the messenger

Blaming the person in charge is normal in a lot of situations.

I failed almost every test I took in my two years of precalculus and calculus during high school. Yet, my math teacher is one of the best teachers I have ever had.

I didn’t fail because he didn’t teach me, or because I didn’t try. I failed because I couldn’t wrap my head around the concepts enough to fully perform them.

But now looking back, I realize on paper it looked like he wasn’t teaching me. It only looked this way because poor test grades reflect poorly on teachers. The same way a losing team reflects poorly on a coach.

Overall, a losing streak, or in this instance, one loss, shouldn’t result in the automatic search for a scapegoat. Teams can lose when everyone is working to the best of their ability.Students can fail when everyone is working to the best of their ability.

It shouldn’t all fall on one person. If a fan has to put blame somewhere, balance it out. It rarely is accurate to make one person the dumping site for blame.