To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. -Steve Prefontaine
Why should the better team play down to the lesser teams level? Should they have played blindfolded? Or with one are tied behind their backs? How would that make the other team feel? If the losing team felt bad, their coach should have forfeited and apologiezed for wasting the other teams time.
The game shouldn’t have been scheduled. Neither team was going to benefit from playing.
In an article in the Dallas Morning News Thursday, the Dallas Academy’s Athletic Director, Jeremy Civello, said The Covenant team kept its first-string players in the game almost until the end, and didn’t let up until the 100th point in the fourth quarter.
I have more of an issue with leaving in the first string as risky for injury to key players and no playing time for benchers than running up the score. Of course, we now know from post #38 that this is not the case.
I suppose you would tell your winning team to beat the disabled kid’s team by as wide a margin as possible?
I would tell them to play the game to their full potential. When did it become a coach’s responsibility to worry about the other team’s feelings? Want to blame a coach? Blame the Dallas Academy coach for not pulling out. Or for entering the contest. Or for being in that league.
I admire the Dallas Academy coach and players. They stuck with it to the end, knowing it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Why should the better team play down to the lesser teams level?
No one is saying they should “play down”. But, if the reports are correct, then the winning team played their starters almost the entire game, continued to full court press almost the entire game and did nothing to alter their game plan so that they could score 100+ points. They had other options that would have helped them become a better overall team and would have helped them work on skills, without having to “play down”, but they chose not to. That is the definition of bad sportsmanship.
“When did it become a coach’s responsibility to worry about the other team’s feelings?”
When the coach took a job in a parochial H.S coaching young women. H.S. athletics are supposed to be, at least in part, about the development of young people, and not just about wins and losses.
It is about your team and, as a coach, what you want to teach them. I am amazed at how many people think it is a good thing to teach a team that it is OK to humiliate another team … at any level.
It is OK to teach them complete and utter disregard for other people? That in sports we should have no regard for how our behavior affects our opponents? That it is not enough to win but you must win when you can with utter and total domination? It is not my place to be concerned at all about the other team?
Wow. I can only hope you are taking this position to agitate.
Having the starters in is bad because it didn’t give the other players on the team a chance to play.
I am all for the team playing the ‘their’ game the best they can. I would have had a problem if the team was on the court putting on dribbling displays or trying to be the Harlem Globetrotters.
H.S. athletics are supposed to be, at least in part, about the development of young people, and not just about wins and losses.
Ageed. And part of that education is that sometimes things will go very well for you and sometimes you will be emabarrassed on the court (of life).
If the winning team was gracious, played by the rules, and didn’t taunt then I don’t see the problem. Is there something especially bad about 100? Would 80-0 be better?
I fully support running up the score. You agree to play another team, expect them to do their best. If you suck, expect to deal with it.
If we want to treat people with disabilities with respect, if they want to be treated like anyone else, expect them to have their dreams crushed like anyone else.
on the other hand, the game shouldn’t really have happened, which this team has made very clear =)
Nope, not trying to agitate or be contrary for the sake of it.
People in this thread are throwing up arbitrary cutoffs for “sportsmanship”. How are you supposed to know when you are humiliating the other team? Should you purposely lose to a winless team so they can have a victory?
The only way to know that the winning team honored the losing team is by knowing that the winning side played their best the entire time and treated the losing team as a competitor.
Like I said in a previous post, sometimes things are good sometimes they go very bad. True learning comes from experiencing both sides, from both perspectives.
Imagine if the coach was on the sidlines screaming, ‘Passing drills! I want to see more passes! No 3 pointers, only layups! Hey! Just get out of the way, let them score and then setup our offense!’
Exactly. Once the game is setup up its a completely retarded situation no matter how it is handled.
omg what a poor choice of words by me
=)
Imagine if the coach was on the sidlines screaming, ‘Passing drills! I want to see more passes! No 3 pointers, only layups! Hey! Just get out of the way, let them score and then setup our offense!’
Nope, not trying to agitate or be contrary for the sake of it.
That’s a shame.
People in this thread are throwing up arbitrary cutoffs for “sportsmanship”.
Not at all.
How are you supposed to know when you are humiliating the other team?
When the goal is no longer to win the game. In this case the goal was to score 100 points.
And, quite frankly, if you have to ask, you lack the judgment to either coach or play.
Should you purposely lose to a winless team so they can have a victory?
Of course not. No one in their comments on this thread has come within a mile of suggesting that. The fact that you asked this question demonstrates that you have no rational basis on which to support your position.
The only way to know that the winning team honored the losing team is by knowing that the winning side played their best the entire time and treated the losing team as a competitor.
So this is what you say to your team at the end of the 100 to 0 win? We honored them? No, you humiliated them. You found yourself in a situation where you were totally undermatched and you abused a fellow competitor. You justify that abuse with the twisted logic that humiliation is actually honor. By your thinking, when you shake hands after the game, there is no saying good game because it was not. By your thinking, you honor them by telling them they suck and they deserved to get beaten by 100 to 0.
Like I said in a previous post, sometimes things are good sometimes they go very bad. True learning comes from experiencing both sides, from both perspectives.
No. It is about sportsmanship, self-respect and dignity. The only good news is that the coach for the winning team in this case recognized that fact … a little too late … but he has recognized it.
I am a coach of my son’s 7th grade basketball team - and unfortunately, there was only one 8th grade team so they threw them into our league.
Every 7th grade team they play - it’s a total slaughter ( about 50 to 20) - - and that’s with them not pressing and making sure they pass the ball around (no fast breaks), etc. The lineups are almost humorous - they match up 1-2 feet taller at every position - it’s really men against boys. It’s not a lot of fun for anybody - and a relief to everyone when it’s over. Since our boys are surviving the contact without injury - it’s good for them (they play up and very physical).
but 100-0 . . . . that just doesn’t smell right. I can’t picture such a mismatch at the same age level.
The private Christian school should have played like the 8th grade team we play - once they get comfortably ahead. That’s just my opinion (which is all we’ve got here.)
BTW, did you notice how I snuck in that the winning coach and team cam from an ‘allegedly’ Christian school. Sounds like their Christian values are more of a hobby.
