Once upon a time, the loudest voices came from the stands in the form of cheers and boos. Maybe they even would direct a few frustrated words at the coach on the way to the parking lot. The coach could put a face to the words.

Now the loudest voices don’t have faces. They have screen names that protect their identities. They hurl grenades from cyberspace with no fear of being held accountable. They type with such muscular fingers, man do they ever. You can almost see them balling those fingers into a mighty fist, dancing in front of a mirror, snapping punches in the air, telling themselves, “I really nailed the coach. Great line, if I do say so myself. He deserved it. I’d cream him in a game of ‘Madden.'”

And they are right in thinking their mighty jabs do damage. They inflict wounds that leave victims bleeding emotionally, wishing they could find the cave in which the hateful voice hides.

Lawrence High football coach Dirk Wedd, the favorite punching bag of the cyberterrorists these days because he coaches a winless football team with one week left in the season, says he doesn’t read the comments the cowards empowered by anonymity type. I believe him. Why should he read them? Is he going to learn how to coach football by doing so?

Wedd’s wife, Junior, the cheerleading coach, reads them. So do their children.

“I wish my assistant coaches wouldn’t read them, and I wish my family wouldn’t read them,” Wedd said Friday night, after his team looked as bad as its record in losing to Free State, 42-14, in a game that was scoreless in the second half. “But I don’t have control over what they read. I know it makes my wife upset. When your family is unhappy, you’re unhappy. But you know how you stop the blogs? By winning football games.”

Lawrence High didn’t look like a well-coached football team when it turned over the ball on each of its first three possessions. It looked like an extremely well-coached football team when it went 10-2 and made it to the 6A semifinals in 2005. Same coach.

Bad football coaches can turn good football players into a bad team, but good football coaches can’t win without horses.

Free State High has both good players and an excellent coach. Bob Lisher’s best move Friday came in the form of class by not running up the score. Wedd, as he has shown in the past when he had speed and strength and depth on his roster, can look like a great coach.

When former LHS quarterback Brian Heere had the hands of a magician with his remarkable ball fakes and Nolan Kellerman cut around and bowled over would-be tacklers and Scott Penny threw big bodies out of the way, Wedd was a genius. Now he has to worry about what his wife is going to read next.

“I’ve never failed at anything in my life, and I don’t intend on this being the first,” Wedd said. “I hope the people that make decisions give me another year and give me an opportunity to show this isn’t what a coach Wedd team is like.”

The people who make decisions can do one of two things: Either bring Wedd back to coach a more talented roster or let the cyberterrorists decide for them. If they choose the latter, they might as well read bathroom walls and follow those orders, too.