It's nice to be recognized ...

April 27, 2008

Happy Sunday, all!

As I mentioned in another post, Mike's teaching position has been eliminated and he will be searching for a new teaching/coaching opportunity. One of the cool things that has come out of this change has been the recognition he has received this past week from students (players and non-players), parents of students (players and non-players), fellow coaches and even reporters. He was interviewed by sports reporters from both the Jacksonville Journal Courier and the Springfield State Journal Register. The SJ-R story especially gave a very well-rounded glimpse into Mike's first three years as a teacher/coach. And really, both articles were positive and led with big headlines. Today Mike was recognized by the Jacksonville Journal Courier's Sports Editor, Dennis Mathes, on his blog. I am reprinting it here, because I think he really captured the picture of Mike. And well, I am proud of him!

Have a beautiful day!

Lisa

Goodbye, Rigoni

April 25th, 2008 by itsonlyagame
Mike
Rigoni is a good basketball coach. So we were surprised Thursday when
we found out his teaching position at Routt had been cut, and he would
no longer be coaching there. Routt offered to let him stay on as coach,
but without the teaching job, obviously it wouldn’t have worked for him.

Over the past several years, the same thing has happened at several
area schools, and I’m thinking particularly about Carrollton. Budget
cuts force the board to reduce staff, and sometimes, the staff member
is also a coach. It’s not a good situation for the coach, the school or
the players. Budget cuts are never good.

Routt had a ton of talent this year and should have gone further in
the playoffs, but a couple of things happened during the season that
kept the team from being everything it might have been and doing
everything it might have done. There really wasn’t much Rigoni could
have done to prevent either one of them.

We don’t know everything that goes on behind the scenes — sometimes,
that’s for the best — but I don’t think another coach could have gotten
more out of that team than Rigoni did. Through it all, Routt still won
a share of the WIVC championship in 2007-08. That was no small
accomplishment this season, with teams like co-champ A-C
Central/Virginia, Carrollton and West Central to contend with.

Over the past three years it was interesting to see Routt progress
as a team and to see Rigoni progress as a coach. Routt was his first
head coaching job. The Rockets lost some big leads this year, which
made some people a little crazy, but they almost always came out on the
winning end. For some reason, people forget that.

Routt won a lot of games this year. The team went 22-7, and Routt
was always fun to watch. No area team ran the fast break better than
Routt did. And no coach was any more gracious after a win or a loss
than Rigoni. No matter what happened, he was always willing to talk to
us, and he was always willing to have the interview videotaped. No
matter what. He took some shots from some of the posters on our Web
site — some fair, some unfair — but he never once complained about
that, either. I think he understood that criticism comes with the job.
That’s kind of a rare thing in itself, especially for someone who
hasn’t been a head coach for that long.

But Rigoni was kind of a rare coach in a lot of ways.

Best of luck, coach.