There were, not long ago, two excellent basketball coaches in Prince William County at rival schools: Sherman Rivers at Patriot and Randall Bills at Battlefield. Each built strong programs. Each understood the game. But they approached one element very differently.
Sherman engaged the officials constantly. He argued calls, worked the margins, stayed in their ears for four quarters. He did so with a certain charm, but also with unmistakable intensity.
Randall took another path. He rarely addressed the officials at all. His attention remained with his players—coaching through situations, emphasizing adjustment over objection. If he disagreed with a call, he absorbed it and moved on.
Sherman’s teams, by most measures, enjoyed greater success. Patriot became one of the premier programs in Virginia, advancing deep into the postseason with regularity. Battlefield, under Bills, produced excellent teams as well, including a run to a state final.
It is tempting, then, to draw a conclusion: that persistence with officials yields advantage—that the squeaky voice, over time, gets the whistle.
There is likely some truth in that, at the margins. Over the course of a game, perhaps even a season, a call or two may lean toward the more insistent presence.
But margins are not the same as causes.
Bills’ approach offered its own discipline. His players learned to tune out what they could not control, to remain composed, to focus on execution rather than grievance. That, too, is an advantage—less visible, perhaps, but no less real. Sherman’s success almost certainly rested on deeper foundations: talent, preparation, and the countless decisions that shape a program long before a whistle is blown.
The distinction is worth considering beyond the gym.
In recent years, the instinct to contest every call has found a political parallel. Donald J. Trump has made a practice of challenging unfavorable coverage and seeking to shape the media environment arguably more than any other president.
There is, undeniably, a logic to it. A more favorable information environment can shape perception, and perception matters. Messaging is not incidental to governance; it is part of it.
But here, too, the question is one of margins versus causes.
Criticism, when grounded in fact, has a function. It sharpens decision-making. It exposes error before it compounds. The press—imperfect, often contentious—serves not merely as an adversary, but as a form of external discipline. To weaken that function is to remove one of the mechanisms by which governance improves.
There is also a longer horizon to consider. When institutions of information are pressed too tightly, they do not necessarily become more trusted. They become less believed. Audiences disengage. Signals are discounted. And when that happens, even favorable coverage loses its value.
Developments abroad offer a cautionary note. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán consolidated influence over media and institutions with considerable success—at least for a time. But control of the narrative is not the same as durability of support. When governance falters, the message alone does not sustain belief.
Which brings us back to the gym.
A coach may gain an edge by working the officials. Over a season, it might even matter. But no team builds a championship on that alone. At some point, the game asserts itself. Execution matters. Discipline matters. The ability to adjust—to reality, not rhetoric—matters most of all.
The same is true in governance.
One can contest every call. One can try to shape every narrative. But in the end, outcomes are determined less by the whistle than by the play.
And seasons, as coaches know, have a way of revealing what was real—and what only seemed to be.