I sense a “Joe the Coach” persona being born...
Extreme success must be punished in Obama’s America.
Running up the score was a bad move, but he shouldn’t be fired.
100 to 0??? Did the other team even show up? That should be worth at least 2 points!
I am boggled that the coach was fired.
I played fast pitch softball on the high school varsity team. Every year, there was one team that was absolutely horrible. We’d score just enough to enact the mercy rule and then our coach would tell the umpire and refs to keep an eye on the baserunners. Baserunners could not leave the base before the ball was pitched. We’d leave base early or otherwise purposely get out without looking like we were trying to do so. We still got the win and the game ended quickly and gracefully.
There was no reason for the coach to have them full court press the whole game or to run up the score. I don’t think he should’ve been fired, but I do think some discipline was warranted. I also do not think that the team should have to forfeit. Those girls won fair and square and were doing what the coach told them to do.
The coach only has or had eight players. He played them all. The winning school is a very small school with only 30 girls and 8 who play basketball. These girls experienced an 82-6 loss themselves and yet no one was fired as a result. I also think there is too much being made of “learning disabilities” in some of the comments. I noticed someone even suggested these kids were retarded which they most certainly are not.
A comment from one of the girls on the winning team: I have ADD and ADHD. There is nothing that separates me from anyone on the Dallas Academy girls team, so there is nothing that should separate the value of our sides. What we did that night is what we are on this team for: to play basketball and win. As for the media calling our actions “unchristian”, that is very sad. For this team, and our coach are a living testimony. I am not sorry for how we played that night because I know that no harm was intended and I also know no harm occurred. I would hope America was more willing to read the lies in between the lines. The coach is as important to the team as we are—we are with him 100%.
When I was in Jr. high, we were beating an opposing basketball team 90 something to 20 something, and our second string had played from half time on. The coach on the other side and the refs had a talk with our coach and told him to stop running up the score. His response was, “I’m not going to tell my second string kids they can’t score.”
The next time we played that team they beat us, not by much, but they beat us. Would it have been fair to tell guys who seldom got play time that they couldn’t score?
What’s shameful is the coach of the losing team not having done anything to prepare his obviously weaker team from being slaughtered.
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".
I’m terribly confused.
In my youth, which is a very distant memory I played on school teams, and community teams, primarily baseball, some football (NOT Soccer), but never basketball (wasn’t interested in it). The objective was to play and win (by the rules of course) in all cases.
Is there some objective other than winning associated with basketball. As I said, I never played it.
Another instance of how Political Correctness has doomed our society. Whoever, out of some distorted view of fairness, placed a team destined to lose chronically into a competitive league should be shot.
Sounds like that other team needs a bailout. Somebody call Ben Bernanke.
I thought the way the media played up the losing team was pathetic.
Should they get credit for finishing the game? yes sure, they did not quit.
However the wining team should also get credit for treating the losing team like serious contenders, not the pathetic wimps the drive by media wants them to be.
They should fire the person that scheduled the game, not the coach who did his job. Unless he is that person.
My son is a competitive fencer.
When he was a lot younger and very new to the sport, he competed in his first tournament. (Where he got his butt kicked)
Anyway, the last kid he fenced that day was much better than him. (The first person to reach 15 touches wins the bout.) This better fencer was beating my son pretty badly. Something like 13 to 0 at one point. This kid then takes it upon himself to “give” my son some free points. Obviously letting my son get 2 free touches. I guess to make him feel better.
First off, it really pissed off my son. (Good for him). He was taught to earn what he received.
Second, the small crowd of onlookers proceeded to boo the better fencer. Myself included.
In fencing, giving someone touches they didn't really win is very wrong.
My son has never forgotten what that “better fencer” did that day.
I have seen my son completely whip someones butt. But he respects his opponents enough to not demean or ridicule them.
Why would a team or individual want something they didn't really earn or deserve?
I would rather lose, accept and learn from the defeat, than be further embarrassed by charity.