▶ Your Answer :
Reporting
Coach Mauro’s accomplishments for the past six years, the author of this memo
here concludes that the Utica School board should hire him for whole football
management in their school system. However, this argument is not convincing
because it relies on a series of unproven assumptions, and thus is not cogent
as it stands.
To begin with, the fact that Silver
Lake high school won three national championships is remarkable achievements,
and one might argue that Mauro is the best coach for these results. This opinion
can be true to some extent, because a team’s performance strongly depends on
its leadership. If they do not have coach Mauro, the three time winning might
not have occurred.
Even though assuming that the
championship winning is contributed by leadership, we must note that the Sliver
Lake High only won three time for the past six years. In other words, their
winning possibility is 50 percent. What happened to the other three years? Were
they ranked at the second rank? Or they were out of the tournament before the
major season? We just do not know based on the argument. Therefore, this
information about the other three years’ performances of the team should be
provided, and the decision makers should not take this assumption into account
until they acquire enough evidence.
Moreover, the argument pointed out
that the number of fans has increased, however, the reason for this increasing
is not clearly addressed in the statement. It might be based on Mauro’s great
leadership or outstanding strategies in the each game, however, it might be
other reasons as well. Perhaps the Silver Lake High had a handsome player who
attracts more female fans. Or perhaps more people moved in the area where
Silver Lake High is located, who are enthusiastic football fans. In short, the
reason of the increased number of the fans is not plausibly provided,
therefore, it is hardly conclude that Mauro’s coaching contributed to the fan
numbers.
Lastly, the fact that more money
was accumulated during the past six years does not necessarily mean that Mauro
has better coaching skills. The more visitors we have in games, the more money
we can make. Thus, correlation between the fundraising and reason for hiring
the coach not effectively demonstrated in the argument.
In sum, even though the Silver Lake
high school has achieved outstanding records for the past six years under Coach
Mauro, the argument is not convincing because it is based on what can amount to
incomplete evidence. Rather, in order to evaluate the argument more
appropriately, the decision makers will need to know the following information:
how Silver Lake High’s performances were in the other three years and why the
number of fans increased sharply. |