Posted on 01/26/2009 11:33:04 AM PST by GeronL
DALLAS (CBS) ―
The coach of a Texas high school basketball team that beat another team 100-0 reportedly was fired Sunday, the same day he sent an e-mail to a newspaper stating he will not apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity" and posted a detailed explanation on a hoops Web site.
The Covenant School girls basketball coach Coach Micah Grimes, along with girls from his team, released a statement on the website of the Flight Basketball Academy.
Kyle Queal, the headmaster for Covenant School, said in The Dallas Morning News online edition that he could not answer if the firing was a direct result of Grimes' e-mail disagreeing with administrators who called the blowout "shameful."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs11tv.com ...
In High School, I played football. Big school, lots of kids on the team, and we were playing a decidedly weaker opponent. We were up big in the 2nd half, so the substitutions began. As we continued to score, the coaches eventually started playing players where they wanted to play, (within reason, as a lineman, I wasn’t allowed to go in for the QB). But, I did get to play LB in a game. 63-7 was enough, and we had fun.
That’s how a mismatch is handled with class. If I had stayed at DT, and we had beaten that team 110-0, I wouldn’t have had near the fun, nor recognized the class of our coaches.
It is like pornography; I know it when I see it.
The headmaster of the school has every right to make those kind of decisions. I bet enrollment will increase because of how he handled this. Besides, it's a Christian school.
“It’s a very small school that takes on girls with learning disabilities.”
and apparently shooting and defense disabilities.
All very good suggestions to improve his team. There are lots of tactics, and poorer players, which could benefit from real game experience but would not be tried for fear of giving up some points. But when giving up some points, even 90 points, does not risk losing the game, then give the team practice in those other tactics and give the poorer players experience.
What’s shameful is the coach of the losing team not having done anything to prepare his obviously weaker team from being slaughtered.
I like what a fellow said on another thread: "If they had been dyslectic, they would have lost 0-100."
“What is a coach to do when he puts in the scrubs of the scrubs and they keep on scoring? I’ve always wondered about that.”
I have been a player and boy’s coach up through the HS level for over 30 years in the very competitive NYC environment. I have used all, or a combination, of the following tactics when it was obvious that our competition was clearly not up to our level. Usually these situations occured when we were scrimmaging against teams outside our league, but there are definitely ways to slow down the game when you need to. I am an extremely demanding, old school type, coach who requires a lot of discipline from my players and who tries to teach them to play the game the correct way. We try to play an extremely physical, high intensity game on defense and are very unselfish on offense. However, as competitive as I am, and as competitive as my players are, we never go out of our way to try humiliate someone else. There is just no reason for it and it shows a lack of sportsmanship and class. I don’t perceive it to be a weakness to take your foot a bit off the gas pedal when it is blatantly clear that you have shown your opponent that you have the superior team.
Having said all this, I do not understand how and why this game was scheduled based on the previous record of this losing team. The administrators (ADs) of both these schools, and not just this over-zealous, misguided coach, should have to answer for this debacle as well. I do agree that it was ridiculous for this losing team to be glorified and coddled by the MSM this morning.
1. Take off any full court or half court press, or pressure on the ball. Play a passive zone defense.
2. Walk the ball up court on offense, no fast breaks. No three pointers.
3. Require a set number of passes per offensive posession before a shot may be taken and minimal dribbling.
4. Work on rarely used offensive sets.
5. Play the least effective players on your squad as much possible.
6. Rotate players out of position to give them experience in other positions. Guards switch with forwards etc.
This really is the meat of the matter. And we are always told that HS sports are more about learning things like integrity etc. It really isn't all about winning. Winning is fine, but they were GOING to win.
When up against such an obviously stronger team, about the only way to prevent being slaughtered is surrender or, in this case, not play in the first place.
This isn't a case of war where a country with devastating air and armor just wipe out a tribe using spears.
Wonderful post.
Major assumptions there. How do we know the girls don’t have dignity and class with or without this game?
How SHOULD they have responded? By staging a mutiny against the coach? By sitting down and refusing to play? By intentionally committing errors, fouls and turnovers?
Sports is about preparation and competition. Should the game have been scheduled? Probably not. But asking male or female athletes to prepare then telling them to dog it in a game is pointless.
“If they had been dyslectic, they would have lost 0-100.”
lmao funny.
It seems that Sportmanship is a lost art.
Some coaches may teach how to score points on the court but they aren’t teaching much about class, now are they?
Or has all that old fashioned stuff gone out the window, long ago?
If this was war, then OK, eliminate the enemy and claim victory. But a kids' basketball game? I mean what was the objective here? What is the actual point of hanging 100 points on a bunch of other kids? What does it prove? It's like shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it?
OK, you've won. The opposition is utterly inept. Do the principles on which sport was initially founded still apply? Respect for your opponent, humility in victory, graciousness in defeat?
The founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin said it best; " .......the important thing is not the triumph but the struggle...the main thing is not to have won, but to have fought well".
According to the coach of the winning team, his team didn’t press after the first quarter (went 2-3 zone), they had 4 three-pointers, only one in the second half (3rd quarter), and he rotated his players very liberally to get his bench players maximum time - and what most stories DON’T tell you is the winning team only has 8 players, one of which i brand-new to hoops this season. His team only scored 12 of its point in the 4th. Can’t find that in most media reports either. Neither can you find any media reports of how his team , which has become successful had a dismal season hist first year there that included an 6-89 loss.
This was a public school.
But not hard to spot when present.
You learned alot from that coach. He cared enough about you in the long term, to do that.
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