JackJumpers win back-to-back games as Roth shares the love
JackJumpers coach Scott Roth’s emotional response to the “haters” after out-gunning the Bullets - “The love from Tasmania is just crazy – it’s quiet a special place”.
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Scott Roth has been stunned by the “love” that has flowed for the NBL champion JackJumpers over the past week after he lifted the lid on a series of online threats and hate targeted at his team.
The 61-year-old coach, from Cleveland, Ohio, was overwhelmed as friends, fans and strangers alike wrapped their arms around the JackJumpers.
“No one can really understand it unless you are down here playing and living it in Tasmania,” Roth said.
“It’s quiet a special place.
“There’s 500,000 people who rally around our guys and believe in this team.
“It has been a hell of a week of support from the state.”
Last weekend, Roth revealed the darker side of social media.
“We have been attacked brutally through social media to the point where it is ugly,” he said.
“We have a player whose wife is pregnant and they (people online) wished for a miscarriage.”
What a difference a week makes.
While JackJumpers officials hope the haters have crawled back into the hole from which they came and the NBL investigates, Roth was again the father-figure after his team scored a second consecutive win, this time against the Brisbane Bullets 95-92 in Hobart on Friday night.
Asked post-game about the past week, Roth said:
“I don’t really want to say too much about it – our franchise put out a release, which sums up quite a bit of it.
“I will say that I was kind of overwhelmed with all of the texts that I got from the mainland and Australia and just people from all over the place.
“Most of them were coaches, and women and men in sporting teams that somehow got my cell number and texted me to say thank you for speaking out.
“I don’t really know who they are, so that was actually quite nice to hear that.
“I don’t want to be at the pointy end of anything but I want to protect my players.
“You can criticise us 28 times a season, tell me I’m the worst coach, and all those other things _ do what you need to do.
“But when you start having these other threats that really go beyond threats, which I won’t get in to, I want to protect our guys and their families.
“It’s easy to say stay off social media but in this world these days these guys have grown up with it that.
“I don’t have social media, but their families are on Facebook.
“So all of these things are transpiring and it’s really hard to say stay off it. We get it.
“But ultimately [there has been] overwhelming support, and the love from Tasmania is just crazy.
“Just the love in this building [MyState Bank Arena] _ you feel it in this state.”
Originally published as JackJumpers win back-to-back games as Roth shares the love
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