We've seen it in the movies. Remember when the fine folks of Hickory gathered for a town meeting to get Norman Dale canned as the school's basketball coach in "Hoosiers."

Too often these days life imitates art.

You hear about how a coach was run out of town by the booster club or that some coach wasn't retained by the school board because the parents didn't like him/her. It happens around here. It happens everywhere.

One of those deposed coaches has fought back -- in a big way.

After being fired as boys basketball coach at Dixon High School last week, Steve Sandholm has decided to fire back at his detractors.

He's suing -- for among other things -- defamation of character and interfering with his economic gain. He's seeking $50,000 in damages, $3 million in punitive damages and costs related to the trial.

What happened at Dixon though wasn't your run-of-the-mill backlash against a coach, though. According to the Dixon Telegraph, a group of parents went to the Dixon administration in February voicing concern over Sandholm.

After one of the parents presented the school board a signed petition to fire Sandholm in March, the board decided not to fire Sandholm, who is also the school's athletic director and hasn't lost those duties. Instead they asked him to do several things to improve the conduct the parents didn't like.

Two days later, the parent group formed the Save Dixon Sports Committee and created a Web site to air their grievances. The group was able to get a local radio station on board. The station broadcast public service announcements from the group blasting the coach.

The announcements were broadcast hourly, every day on three Dixon radio stations.

All of the sudden, he was public enemy No. 1 in the town of 15,000 that was the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan. At the April school board meeting last week, Sandholm was removed as the school's basketball coach.

No wonder he's suing the lot of them. Coincidentally, the Web site is now empty and the PSAs have stopped airing on the radio since he filed his suit.

Sandholm's basically guilty of being an old-school coach. The 57-year-old has been successful everywhere he's been for his 33-year coaching career, which includes stops in Forreston, Rochelle, Manlius, Knoxville and Mount Carroll. While at Knoxville, a small town outside of Galesburg, Sandholm took the Blue Bullets to a No. 1 state ranking in the late 1980s and made the program one of the top small-school teams in the state at the time. His nine-year record at Dixon isn't the best -- 108-143, including an 8-20 mark last season -- but he had two 19-win teams at a program that has had just one 20-win season in its 89-year history.

Having covered his teams several times when he was at Knoxville, and seeing him coach Dixon against QND late in the 2005-06 season, Sandholm seemed to be no different than any other coach. He was no Bobby Knight. He seemed to be a funny guy who loved to coach basketball. That he's being run out of Dixon is surprising.

I've never really figured out why parents go so nutso when it comes to their kids and athletics. Do you ever hear about the Spanish teacher or the band director being the target of a parental protest?

As part of its coverage of the saga, the Dixon Telegraph talked to other coaches in its coverage area about parental backlash. Mike Papoccia, the highly successful football coach at Sterling Newman Central Catholic, had a quote all parents should remember.

"We don't tell you how to be accountants, lawyers, doctors, whatever," Papoccia told the paper. "We expect that same respect."

It's great advice. Unfortunately, few will listen to it.

-- dobrien@whig.com/221-3365