The fair-way approach
Golf coach strikes a blow for sportsmanship
his team had rolled around the green and mugged for pictures with the state championship trophy in hand. The disappointed runner-ups were on their bus heading home. And then Westborough golf coach Greg Rota noticed that something looked wrong on one of the scorecards.
He could have let it go. He could have just gotten into the van with his team and brought the Division 2 state championship golf trophy home to Westborough. Probably no one would ever know.
But he'd always wonder whether that trophy was really made of fool's gold. So he went over and asked one of his players about a score on the 18th hole. Rota had seen some of the competition on that hole and the scorecard didn't look right.
The coach's instincts were correct. A 9 had been recorded as a 7. An incorrect scorecard had been signed. Rota went directly to the tournament director with the information. The small change meant that the final result was reversed. Woburn won the state championship. Westborough finished second.
It was not a difficult decision, said Rota, who played hockey at the University of New Hampshire. Still, he could have said nothing and no one would have objected.
''You can't go through life that way,'' said the coach. ''That [Woburn] team worked just as hard as we did. It belonged to them. It wasn't ours to take.''
Bob Doran has coached Woburn's golf team for 32 years. He was stunned when he got a call Monday night informing him that his team had been awarded the state championship while they were riding home on their bus.
''[Rota] disqualified his own player and showed great integrity to do that,'' said Doran. ''No one would have ever known. This is part and parcel to what golf is all about. You don't see many things like this in society today.''
There's a lot of self-policing in high school golf. Players keep scorecards for one another and coaches are sprinkled around the course as part of the officiating. Rota was in a good position to discover the pivotal error because he was stationed near the 18th green as the tourney's official scorer. He'd brought a laptop computer with a program to track the multiplayer, multiteam competition at the Sterling Country Club.
Accordingly, he'd seen most of the players on 18. He'd seen one of his players struggle badly. He didn't notice the mistake initially because he was punching in 1,370 scores into his laptop in a period of 30 minutes at the end of the competition.
By the time he noticed the error and confirmed it with his player, the trophy presentations were over and Woburn's team was on Route 128 (bound for Route 38, where a police escort took them through the center of town).
''I feel badly about that,'' said Rota. ''The moment was lost for them. That makes me feel the worst. It's like a team winning the Stanley Cup and then not getting to celebrate with the Cup on the ice. It was awful.''
Woburn senior captain Rob Pruyne said, ''Watching them roll around with the trophy kind of got to me. But then my coach called me last night and told me we had won. I thought he was messing around. Then when I heard it was their own coach that discovered the mistake, I couldn't believe it. That's very respectable, I think. It takes a lot of courage to do something like that.''
The state championship trophy remains in the hands of the MIAA and will be picked up by Woburn officials next week.
Woburn athletic director Richard Qualey said, ''I have to applaud this Westborough coach for coming forward with a thing that could have gone unnoticed. The sportsmanship this shows is unbelievable.''
Westborough athletic director Brian Callaghan is rightfully proud of his coach.
''When an opportunity like this presents itself, it's important for a coach to make good decisions,'' said Callaghan. ''It must have been tough for him to do what he did with his own team. It shows that integrity still means something. This is an example of one of life's lessons that we should be teaching young people.''
Honesty and sportsmanship are too often missing ingredients in sports today, even at the high school level. Sometimes the emphasis on winning masks the true meaning of interscholastic competition. We forget that the kids are there to compete and to learn.
On Monday, teen golfers from Woburn and Westborough learned a great lesson from a 38-year-old coach.
That would be Greg Rota. Hockey coach. Golf coach. Gym teacher. True sportsman.
:director:
:toast::spotting:
:Yep:
Golf coach strikes a blow for sportsmanship
his team had rolled around the green and mugged for pictures with the state championship trophy in hand. The disappointed runner-ups were on their bus heading home. And then Westborough golf coach Greg Rota noticed that something looked wrong on one of the scorecards.
He could have let it go. He could have just gotten into the van with his team and brought the Division 2 state championship golf trophy home to Westborough. Probably no one would ever know.
But he'd always wonder whether that trophy was really made of fool's gold. So he went over and asked one of his players about a score on the 18th hole. Rota had seen some of the competition on that hole and the scorecard didn't look right.
The coach's instincts were correct. A 9 had been recorded as a 7. An incorrect scorecard had been signed. Rota went directly to the tournament director with the information. The small change meant that the final result was reversed. Woburn won the state championship. Westborough finished second.
It was not a difficult decision, said Rota, who played hockey at the University of New Hampshire. Still, he could have said nothing and no one would have objected.
''You can't go through life that way,'' said the coach. ''That [Woburn] team worked just as hard as we did. It belonged to them. It wasn't ours to take.''
Bob Doran has coached Woburn's golf team for 32 years. He was stunned when he got a call Monday night informing him that his team had been awarded the state championship while they were riding home on their bus.
''[Rota] disqualified his own player and showed great integrity to do that,'' said Doran. ''No one would have ever known. This is part and parcel to what golf is all about. You don't see many things like this in society today.''
There's a lot of self-policing in high school golf. Players keep scorecards for one another and coaches are sprinkled around the course as part of the officiating. Rota was in a good position to discover the pivotal error because he was stationed near the 18th green as the tourney's official scorer. He'd brought a laptop computer with a program to track the multiplayer, multiteam competition at the Sterling Country Club.
Accordingly, he'd seen most of the players on 18. He'd seen one of his players struggle badly. He didn't notice the mistake initially because he was punching in 1,370 scores into his laptop in a period of 30 minutes at the end of the competition.
By the time he noticed the error and confirmed it with his player, the trophy presentations were over and Woburn's team was on Route 128 (bound for Route 38, where a police escort took them through the center of town).
''I feel badly about that,'' said Rota. ''The moment was lost for them. That makes me feel the worst. It's like a team winning the Stanley Cup and then not getting to celebrate with the Cup on the ice. It was awful.''
Woburn senior captain Rob Pruyne said, ''Watching them roll around with the trophy kind of got to me. But then my coach called me last night and told me we had won. I thought he was messing around. Then when I heard it was their own coach that discovered the mistake, I couldn't believe it. That's very respectable, I think. It takes a lot of courage to do something like that.''
The state championship trophy remains in the hands of the MIAA and will be picked up by Woburn officials next week.
Woburn athletic director Richard Qualey said, ''I have to applaud this Westborough coach for coming forward with a thing that could have gone unnoticed. The sportsmanship this shows is unbelievable.''
Westborough athletic director Brian Callaghan is rightfully proud of his coach.
''When an opportunity like this presents itself, it's important for a coach to make good decisions,'' said Callaghan. ''It must have been tough for him to do what he did with his own team. It shows that integrity still means something. This is an example of one of life's lessons that we should be teaching young people.''
Honesty and sportsmanship are too often missing ingredients in sports today, even at the high school level. Sometimes the emphasis on winning masks the true meaning of interscholastic competition. We forget that the kids are there to compete and to learn.
On Monday, teen golfers from Woburn and Westborough learned a great lesson from a 38-year-old coach.
That would be Greg Rota. Hockey coach. Golf coach. Gym teacher. True sportsman.
:director:
:toast::spotting: :Yep:
