Criticism might be the wrong word. Maybe unnecessary airing of dirty laundry is a better way to describe how it came across to me. A lot of things, whether it is player-coach, husband-wife, parent-child, bff-bff, are just better off kept confidential. It’s annoying for fans but there is a reason for it. Maybe this was the right time to break from that and not bite the tongue, maybe there was necessary narrative control.. Not sure. This didn’t really blow up publicly until Painter’s interview. I do believe if former players were out giving interviews and talking about Painter’s shortcomings it would not be well received by a lot of people. But I’ve softened from my original reactions, and as I stated above I just thought “you can say anything publicly that you would say in private” wasn’t the best argument. I’m officially Switzerland now on this topic.You've alluded to things like this in other posts(criticism) and have been(in my opinion) completely wrong in that assessment each time. Painter did NOT "criticize" either guy, in fact commenting that he liked them multiple times. What Painter said was exactly what someone who cares very much about his kids and their decisions (and futures) in and out of athletics does say. He did, in fact mention also in the interview that he'd said these things to Eastern and Haarms. Specifically regarding the "probably got better" comment, it was part of the discussion which also included "if you don't want to be here, don't want to embrace competition" back and forth with he and Dakich and part of the interview mentioning kids making a change in scenery but not necessarily their own work and production. That's NOT criticizing someone, it's reality, for not just athletes but also for pretty much everyone in any endeavor. To claim this as publicly humiliating anyone is just crazy, and an extreme mis-reading of the interview and situation.
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