"I know a lot about the law and various other lawyerings."
Hitters who avoid outs are the funnest.
Obviously, there are differing interpretations of the degree to which "pouring it on" happened.
I think part of the pushback is, this was high school. It's understood in the pros or college that you (usually) have the same resources available and if you can't put a competitive team out there it's your own fault. From high school on down, that's not always the case. The losing school -- 20 girls in the whole school, and seems to specialize in troubled kids -- obviously can't put a competitive team on the floor. Knowing that, maybe they should reconsider who they're scheduling, but Covenant probably isn't a big school either.
The imbalance is even worse at the youth levels and I've been on both sides. My daughter's basketball team is getting whomped on a regular basis; last night, this one girl on the other team could have beaten us 60-0 by herself while her teammates went off to the concession stand, but that didn't happen. On the flip side, our last U6 soccer team went undefeated, and in a couple of those games, the opposing coach and the referee and I simultaneously "forgot" the rule against stationing kids in goal.
When we start kids out playing sports, we always want to win, sure. But we get that there's value to playing the game beyond winning. As they get older, the winning and competing gets to be a bigger part and the kids who can't compete usually fall by the wayside. But I'd like to think that high school is not too late to learn life lessons from athletics, something beyond "second place is the first loser."
Reading comprehension is not just an ability, it's a choice
I think the other question that needs to be asked is why this other team continues to field a girl's basketball team when they only have 20 girls in the school and 8 players on the team? I can only assume they're already in the lowest athletic division possible, and they've lost all their games for 4 straight years according to the story.
Seriously -- what's the point of that? I have a hard team feeling bad for them -- sports are, by their very nature, competitive activities. If you can't be competitive, then don't cry "poor me" and expect everyone else to bow to your inabilities out of some higher notion of "sportsmanship." I agree, running the score to 100 when the other team hadn't scored a bucket was probably a little low class -- but it's equally as low class to walk a team into gyms night after night that has no chance of winning games and expecting to be pitied by opposing teams.
No offense, but I think that attitude is problematic. Life has winners. Life has losers. Just like some people are athletically gifted and talented, other simply aren't. It's as important to prepare kids to deal with failure and the realization that there are some things that, no matter how hard they "try", that they simply aren't going to be very good at. Part of maturity is recognizing this and moving on.
Life won't ease up because the score gets rough. A boss will still fire you even if you have lots of other problems going on. The rent will still be due on the 1st of the month even if you're broke. Trying real hard won't make advanced calculus any easier if you don't have a head for numbers.
Life lessons come in those forms too, and I think people forget that too often.
Last edited by Caveat Emperor; 01-27-2009 at 07:41 PM.
Cincinnati Reds: Farm System Champions 2022
It's not right to embarrass someone like that. You don't tell your kid's to quit trying, but you DO let the foot off the pedal. The team they were playing is a school of 20 girl's, and I believe that I read the school is for children with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. The school is embarrassed, as they should be. And for the coach to publicly display his disagreement with that led to him justifiably getting fired, IMO.
They scored 12 points in the 4th quarter. Clearly they let up for 1/4 of the game. I fail to see a problem.
People forget about the winning team's girls. They've become the victims of adults far more than the losing team at this point. The team that lost gets all the attention, love, and even a chance to watch an NBA game from a suite. At 14-17, they won't remember this game 5 years from now. The winning team lost their coach, is viewed as epitomizing the wrong side of sports, and now has lost their coach and the support from their school administrators in the middle of the season. That's not something you forget so easily.
And for what, admins, parents, and pundits thirsty for blood and immediate retribution? Fire the guy after the season if you want, but don't ruin the girls' season because they weren't told to run the 4 corners offense after 13 minutes of play. They're the ones being hurt most in all of this. You know the rest...two wrongs don't make a right.
Youth sports were great until adults got involved.
Last edited by guttle11; 01-27-2009 at 09:07 PM.
Damn CE, that is a really good post.
"I know a lot about the law and various other lawyerings."
Hitters who avoid outs are the funnest.
This is an interesting topic. You hate to see a team lose 100-0 but if they had lost 98-6, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. Was that coach guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct? Yeah, but I don't think he deserved to lose his job over it. It's not like he molested anyone or had a DUI. He didn't even assault anyone. People can do what they want but if I were on a team that lost 100-0 and we're being treated like world champs, I'd be awfully embarrassed. But this is the Andy Warhol culture we're in where everyone is famous for 15 minutes.
Another aspect of this that people don't usually think about is if you step off the pedal, how do you do it without making it look like you are pitying the other team? Should people intentionally miss shots? Turn over the ball? Get beat on defense on purpose so the other team can score? Do you dive for loose balls? Try to block shots? Block out on the boards? If you do those things and the other team knows it, are you making them feel better that they had a positive result even though it was tainted, or are you making them feel worse because the only way they could have that positive result is cause you let them?
There's also something to be said for performing up to your abilities all the time regardless of the score. You're a 3rd string QB and your team is up in the 4th quarter 56-3. When the coach puts you in the game in that situation, the acceptable behavior is to just hand off the ball to the running back. But how often do you get into a game against live competition? You want to show what you can do in case, somewhere down the road, you're in the game in a competitive situation.
Also, I feel that three pointers are just a shot, if they are open, they should take it. It is harder to make (presumably) than a 15 foot jumper so I think the difference in difficulty would offset the difference in points if they only took twos. So if those girls had gone all derrick rose and just drove the lane would that have been more palatable? It's like throwing the ball in the 4th quarter when you are up, it's not rubbing it in, its just an offensive play and unless you are throwing 60 yard hail mary's than it shouldn't be criticized.
Another thing that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is that the losing team's school caters to students with learning disabilities. If that is the case, I would fire whoever decided to schedule them, whether it be the coach or AD.
On the other hand, I completely agree with guttle. Even with the above situation, you are demonizing success.
If this were college football, Steve Spurrier would have been fired 100 times over already.
I assume they field a team because they have girls who enjoy playing basketball. Should you stop doing something you enjoy just because you're not very good at it? If so I guess my golfing days should be over. Besides this is a school that caters to students with low academic abilities. Being an educator I know that you want to give students who struggle as much incentive to work hard as possible. If they want to play on the basketball team let that be a reward as long as they keep their grades up. In my school many student athletes receive their best grades during their sport's season because the have the extra motivation to pass.
As far as crying "poor me" I might have missed it but I don't recall ever hearing that the team complained about being beaten so badly. It seems like this story was a creation of the winning school (for seeking to forfeit the game afterwords) and the media. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard much of anything from the losing school.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...t.40d72ee.html
Actally, Dallas Academy has withdrawn from the 6-team league and cancelled their jan 30th game against Covenant. They are looking for non-league opponents to fill out their scedule.
It's sad that it came to this. I can understand if the best players played the whole game. I could also understand if they put up 30 in the fourth quarter. However, twelve points is taking it easy on an opponent. Like was pointed out earlier, the fans were the reason it was taken like this. If they just would have kept quiet, there might be a fuss about this, but I doubt they would have fired the coach.
-LTlabnerIf you can't build a winning team with that core a fire-sale isn't the solution. Selling the franchise, moving them to Nashville and converting GABP into a used car lot is.
"I know a lot about the law and various other lawyerings."
Hitters who avoid outs are the funnest.
Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please. |