Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kevin Haslam (football coach)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Stifle (talk) 08:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Kevin Haslam (football coach)

Kevin Haslam (football coach) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Non-notable minor college football coach and administrator, no substantive, independent articles about him. Fails WP:ATHLETE even on the broadest measure (his head coaching career has been in NAIA and low level colleges, not at the "highest level of amateur sports"), fails the prof test as well. Prod removed by creator stating "article has been improved and sources added," but the sources are still only from the schools in question and not independent, and none establish his notability per WP:BIO, WP:ATHLETE or WP:PROF. See prior AfDs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Walter J. West, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ward A. Wescott, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William McCracken, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Max Holm and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. J. Thiel.  RGTraynor  15:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• keep in general for reasons outlined at the essay discussing college football coaches. But for more detail, see below in a point-by-point response:
  • Fails WP:ATHLETE even on the broadest measure (his head coaching career has been in NAIA and low level colleges, not at the "highest level of amateur sports") No clear-cut definition is given at WP:ATHLETE what specifically measures the "highest level of amateur sports" for American football or any other sport. There is an established college football project that has discussed the matter thoroughly and continues to arrive on the conclusion that "college football" is the highest level of the amateur sport and not necessarily "NCAA Division I FBS" football. Reasons include avoiding violaitons of WP:NPOV, WP:NOTBIGENOUGH, and WP:IDONTLIKEIT as well as the benefits of maintaining the data. As a parallel, Wikipedia tends to keep all high school articles, regardless of student population size. There is also additional historical value, the potential merger of the NAIA and the NCAA, that schools sometimes switch from NAIA to NCAA, and teams sometimes compete across the organizing bodies. There are many, many reasons to support the point that NAIA college football programs are among the "highest level" of the sport.
  • fails the prof test as well. This is also discussed on the essay in the section 'Academic Standards and how a game can be considered the athletic equivalent to an academic published paper. The essay goes into details that would be redundant to re-print here. Not covered in the essay is the additional point that the subject served as athletic director for at least two schools, which would qualify for criteria #5 "The person holds or has held a named/personal chair appointment... at a major institution of higher education and research." -- I maintain that both "head football coach" and "athletic director" would both be that appointment and meet that requirement.
  • Prod removed by creator stating "article has been improved and sources added," but the sources are still only from the schools in question and not independent, Yes the prod was removed, as per recommended procedure and done in good faith. However, a quick survey of the sources show that while school sources are used, there are also sources outside the school: Topeka Capital-Journal, Northern Sun Conference, NJCFCA, and the College Football Data Warehouse.
  • and none establish his notability per
    • WP:BIO, Meets basic criteria through multiple independent sources as stated under Bio's Basic critera as well as Additional criteria of a widely recognized contribution of being the founding coach or first football coach and athletic director of the football program at the University of Saint Mary.
    • WP:ATHLETE (discussed above)
    • or WP:PROF. (discussed above)
  • See prior AfDs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Walter J. West, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ward A. Wescott, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William McCracken, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Max Holm and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. J. Thiel These AfD discussions are about other coaches, not this coach. Yes, they can be useful and all editors are welcome to review them. There are also more to review at the college football notability essay Head Coach Notability Discussion Library and on the College Football Project page.
  • Additional points: In previous AfD discussions listed above, nominator has accused the project of attempting to sidestep policy by making its own notability policy and expressing that as policy. While this has never been the intention, it is possible that an essay can be mis-interpreted and/or mis-applied as a policy. Please note the intent of the essay is to further enhance, clarify, and discuss policy as it pertains specifically to college football and not to overturn it. The essay provides the additional benefit of having potential repeated discussiosn in one place. Wikipedia encourages writing essays and that has been done (and continues to be done) at the college football project. Also, please note that on many occasions input has been requested from both inside and outside the college football project for feedback on the essay, and very little has been provied on that essay's talk page. This (along with the extended period of time) has given a form of pocket consensus or at least general acceptance of the concepts discussed in the essay. Anyone who would like to contribute to that essay to further assist editors in creating quality articles about college football is welcome to do so.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Reply: Without indulging in an equally rambling counter essay, (1) In terms of college football, the near-unanimous consensus is that "highest level of amateur sports" applies exclusively to Division I NCAA football, the only demurrers being the aforementioned three or four editors at the CFB Wikiproject. NAIA is three rungs below that; (2) Mr. McDonald's sole rationale for Keep on a number of AfDs were "Per CFB:COACH," and when challenged, attempted at first to defend it on the grounds of claiming to have achieved a broad consensus for it; (3) WP:BIO requires that ""Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail ..." I doubt many (beyond CFB, of course) would agree that a college with 683 undergrads is a "major" anything, or that being the founding coach in a NAIA program that size is a "widely recognized contribution;" (4) That Mr. McDonald feels that "a game can be considered the athletic equivalent to an academic published paper" I don't argue, but I'd wager he'd be met at best with derision if he took that premise to the academic community, most of whom don't publish a dozen academic papers a season; and (5) Mr. McDonald has not hesitated to claim other specific AfDs as consensus, and I'm surprised to hear him now discount the notion.  RGTraynor  18:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Questions/Comments:
        • I only made a long entry because you made a long entry. Rather than just respond with short snippets, I thought it best to reply with detail, this way other editors can respond easily. If you would like to pull some of the points of your nomination, I would be happy to reduce my responses.
        • Where is the "near unanimous consensus" on NCAA Div I you mention?
        • The NAIA is not exactly "three rungs below" NCAA Div I. All are college level. 4 years of play in the NAIA makes a player inelligible for any play in NCAA, and vice versa. Players are drafted into the NFL from the NAIA and all levels of the NCAA. Granted, Div I has more money, more audience, and more recognition--but they are the same level in many respects. Popularity does not necessarily equal notability.
        • I made many other statements at other AfDs besides just consensus. Would you really like me to catalog them here in addition to the essay I mentioned?
        • Stating that 683 students is too small shows a clear violation of WP:NOTBIGENOUGH and by arguing that being the founding coach is not a strong enough contribution reeks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Now, if you have a guideline or policy that states that if there were 684 students (or some other larger number) then it would be big enough, would you please bring it up now?
        • Academic papers and games--I'm sure there would be a lot of people in academia who don't like football or sports in general. Is there an English department information director or a Physics department information director?? No? Okay, maybe a Sports information director. Even the smallest of small colleges have that if they have any athletic program at all. Not liking an argument does not make it invalid.
        • More on Academic: And you still haven't addressed the point about criteria #5 where he served both as head coach and athletic director
        • Still more on Academic: even if consensus is that he would ultimately fail the academic test, there's still the sports and bio and all the other parts. The article must fail all of these, not just one and out.
        • I'm not discounting that consensus can be expressed through AfDs, I simply pointed out that you only posted the AfDs that support your point of view. I provided a broader base for editors passing to this discussion to have more information choices.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• Delete--not because he was so eminently unsuccessful, despite the author's attempts to make something out of nothing (he was claimed to be the third-winningest coach at St. Mary's, with one win and seventeen losses--third-winningest out of three!), but because indeed, there is no notability, no publications, nothing of interest except for a few brief passages that report his coming and going at various schools. OH, that business about a game being a paper? That's laughable, and I speak as an academic here. Drmies (talk) 19:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
  • If a game is like an academic paper, this person, as far as can be established from the article and its sources, wrote 50 papers and received a failing grade on 42 of them. That's not good, though it might be notable in its own right, like the Lanterne Rouge in the Tour de France. Drmies (talk) 19:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
    • As to the concept of relating win-loss to pass fail: If a "win" is a "pass" and a "loss" is a "fail" then I guess so... but is the sole purpose of the game to win? Certainly winning is one of the purposes of competitive sport, but if winning were the only purpose then Harvard University and Yale and the other Ivy League schools would not have competetive sports at all. I suggest having an open mind and leaving a little room for some other purpose or purposes of the sport before rushing to a conclusion.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Please let's not get teary-eyed over the philosophical and educational aspects of sports. First of all, I don't get a page on Wikipedia because some of my students went to graduate school. This argument of having an 'open mind' is specious, probably facetious, not to mention irrelevant to the discussion. If you are in sports, and you want to be noted, you must win. By the same token, if you are a coach, you better win games or you'll get fired--which is what happened here. He's not Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards. The guy is simply not notable. Drmies (talk) 17:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Mm ... really, we need a healthy dose of WP:SOAPBOX in the discussion. Wikipedia is not an advocacy forum to put college coaches on an equal academic plateau as researchers, nor are we bound to consider -- indeed, we are bound NOT to consider -- the moral, philosophical or spiritual values of sport in our society in gauging whether a subject passes WP:V or WP:BIO. We have black-letter policy before us, and one simple question to answer: does this subject meet the criteria or does he not?  RGTraynor  18:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Quite. I'm certainly not going to get into a point-by-point slanging match, the more especially given Mr. McDonald's propensity to answer a 100 word deletion rationale with 750 words, but the standard seems to be to buttress a non-notable coaching position at an obscure institution with two or three other non-notable posts at equally obscure institutions. Given the amount of effort he's placed into the many similar articles he's written, I don't blame him for passionately defending them, but the clear, overwhelming and consistent consensus over the last several weeks is that Division III, NAIA or lower college football play just is not notable, and gigantic essays don't overturn that. Three times zero or ten times zero, it still equals zero in the end.  RGTraynor  19:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Right. I support your AfD, and the other two. Drmies (talk) 20:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
• Delete We have been over this. Appeals to CFB:COACH against WP:N and WP:ATHLETE don't win the day. A News search with confounding terms removed doesn't leave many promising hits. Protonk (talk) 16:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Question why do you think that CFB:COACH is against WP:N and WP:ATHLETE? Have you read CFB:COACH?--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Of course I have. The essay as written is clearly, unambiguously, and avowedly adversarial toward WP:N and WP:ATLHETE. WP:N says: covered in third party sources in sig. detail. WP:ATHLETE says "played at the highest level of amateur sports==>probably covered in third party sources". Athlete is designed to stop us from deleting articles on Olympians and professional players because we don't see a source readily at hand. Both are a means to an end: creation of articles free from NPOV, BLP and WP:IINFO problems. CFB:COACH says that all coaches, regardless of the level the team plays at, are to be included. This means that an overwhelming majority of biographical articles will not be sourced to biographies or to material that is independent from the subject's employer. As a result we get articles that are merely work histories and win loss records or articles that inflate the importance of the subject. neither result is acceptable. The community requires that we work with an inclusion standard that will basically result in articles that meet our policies. WP:N does that. To a lesser extent, WP:ATHLETE does that. CFB:COACH does not. As written it is NOT a functioning guideline for inclusion. It is a set of arguments to be used in AfD in order to keep the articles that the project wants. Does that answer your question? Protonk (talk) 18:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Exactly; CFB:COACH is, as you say, about 5% "Every man who has ever coached college ball is notable" and 95% "Here's what you say to counter every argument the deletionists over on AfD might throw at you." It's a large part of the reason I've declined Mr. McDonald's kind invitation to go over and debate CFB's criteria: they don't have criteria so much as a polemic.  RGTraynor  00:28, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Clearly does not meet WP:ATHLETE. -Djsasso (talk) 15:51, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.