Let me be very clear before anybody gets uncomfortable.
Chennis Berry was not whining.
He was telling the truth.
And truth has a way of sounding harsh to people who have never had to sit in silence while everyone else got the spotlight.
Fam, I hear you, but I FEEL him.
Those calls?
They are EVERY. SINGLE. MONDAY.
Same link.
Same faces.
Same routine.
And if you’ve never been on one of those conference calls, let me tell you how it really goes. The chat is FULL. Cameras on. Mics muted. Reporters ready. You can feel the anticipation. You can see the names pop up. You know people are listening.
And then, nothing.
No questions.
Not because you didn’t win.
Not because you didn’t dominate.
Not because you didn’t say anything worth quoting.
You are the CHAMPION of the conference.
You have not lost to anyone else on that call.
You are delivering quotables damn near every sentence.
And still, silence.
So they move on.
And here’s the part people pretending not to understand are conveniently ignoring.
The moment they move on, the room that was silent for you suddenly becomes ALIVE.
Now everybody’s hands are up.
Now jokes are flying.
Now there’s laughter, back and forth, follow ups, curiosity.
Now there’s a line of questions.
All of this energy,
For coaches who haven’t done what you’ve done.
So no, this isn’t jealousy.
That’s lazy.
That’s dismissive.
That’s people who have never had to earn respect twice.
This is about being overlooked in real time.
Am I jealous?
NO.
But does it hurt?
Yeah. It really hurts.
And here’s the part the critics don’t want to sit with, because it ruins their narrative.
You don’t flip the table.
You don’t lash out.
You don’t complain on the call.
You log off.
And you do what so many Black professionals, Black coaches, Black leaders have had to do for decades, you talk to yourself.
You remind yourself,
“I’m doing a good job.”
You remind yourself why you’re here,
“My players. My staff. My school.”
You remind yourself you’re on a mission.
And then, quietly, you file it away.
You use it as fuel on the nights you could go home early.
On the mornings you could sleep an extra hour.
On the days when nobody’s clapping but the work still has to get done.
That’s not lame.
That’s not soft.
That’s not whining.
That’s discipline.
That’s a man who knows exactly who he is, and exactly how he’s being treated.
And one day, when the wins pile up too high to ignore, when the résumé forces the conversation, when the same people who skipped over you suddenly “discover” you,
They’re going to know how you felt.
And more importantly, how they made you feel.
So to the people calling this whining,
You’ve never been in that room.
I have.
And if you’ve ever sat there, watching the chat light up for everybody else while your name gets passed over like you didn’t just earn the right to be heard,
You’d understand exactly why Chennis Berry said what he said.
He didn’t ask for pity.
He didn’t ask for validation.
He told the truth.
And sometimes the truth makes people uncomfortable, especially when it exposes who they’ve been overlooking the whole time.
