Posted on 11/17/2010 4:31:12 PM PST by llevrok
By now, you may be among the millions of people who've seen on YouTube the trick football play pulled off by the Driscoll Middle School of Corpus Christi, Texas.
If you've been watching President Obama abroad or otherwise wasting your time, here's what happens: Driscoll breaks out of the huddle, and the quarterback lines up over the ball. From the sideline, the assistant coach calls out that Driscoll deserves a five-yard penalty.
At this point, the Driscoll center casually hands the ball over his shoulder to the quarterback. This is perfectly acceptable, even though we know that the center invariably delivers the ball through his legs.
The quarterback then takes the ball and starts to walk off five yards himself, as the opponents look on, confused. Then, clear of the opposition, the quarterback suddenly breaks into a run and dashes 67 yards for a touchdown.
The play is legal, and just about everybody who has seen it gets a real hoot out of it. In one online poll, 92.1 percent of those who voted said the play was genius.
Well, it isn't funny, and it isn't right.
Sure, athletes often employ gamesmanship, and I will now give you a lecture on situational ethics.
Remember this summer, when Derek Jeter, the all-American boy, idol of millions, faked getting hit by a pitch and his acting was so good he was awarded first base?
Well, Jeter is a grown-up, playing other grown-ups, in a game umpired by grown-ups. So are wide receivers who pretend to catch a pass that really hit the ground first, and basketball players who flop back as if they were fouled.
Just like the Driscoll Middle School quarterback, it is perfectly legal to act in a game. But the players who do that in the pros are not embarrassing the opposition. They're just trying to con the umpire. It's a benign bit of hustle that would've made for some good Aesop's Fables if old Aesop were around writing a sports blog nowadays.
But the Driscoll team didn't act instinctively to try to put one over on a ref. The middle schoolers didn't even come up with the ruse. Their coach dreamed up the play, and even participated in it, hollering from the sideline. The referees weren't victimized. In fact, they had to play along.
No, it was only the other team's kids who were embarrassed and belittled by a children's coach being a wise guy, a bully of sorts. It wasn't genius at all; rather, it was a form of child abuse. Sure, it was legal, but it wasn't fair.
Laugh at kids being outslicked by a grown-up, and you're cruel. That isn't sport.
Since Frank objects to acting, I will assume he doesn’t watch soccer. LOL
Earth to Frank. In a game there are all sorts of things that may happen. There is a smaller number of things that usually happen. The team that concentrates only on what usually happens is a team that is playing by rote. Such a team deserves to get smacked down. Sometimes it’s by another team that does what usually happens better. Sometimes it’s by another team that has developed a strategy that employs tactics that aren’t so usual so as to give themselves an advantage against other teams that are too mainstream and limited in their approach to the game. It’s the team that boldly employs everything available to it within the rules of the game that is most fully engaging in the game. A good coach is one who is able to see what kind of game the other team plays and then adjust to take advantage of it. A good team is one that can make the adjustment quickly enough to beat the other team.
LOL - No way. Runny nosed bed wetters like this guy never took the field. In gym class the only thing picked after him was his nose. It is precisely this type of jacka$$ that brought us "we don't keep score" soccer in Taxachusetts.
This deford bozo is probably one of those same pansies who think life should be fair at the price of true competition and no one should be allowed to win EVER because that means someone else ends up with damaged self esteem because they lost(oh no!).
It’s a game. Once upon a time, before the p*$$ification of our culture, games were played with the goal of winning by defeating ones opponent, not making everyone FEEEEEEL good.
I scored on a Center Sneak in pee wee. Snapped it and then took it back and ran 80 yds for a TD. One of the best days of my childhood. A lineman scoring, awesome. I dont care if the other team was embarrassed, I was happy.
Now Im left to wonder why, with my 80 yd avg and perfect 1:1 ratio of runs:TD, my HS coach didnt make me a RB.
So all of the following would be crimes of child abuse:
1. The “hard” count
2. The “pump fake”
3. The “play action” pass
4. The QB sneak
5. Any reverse
6. God forbid... the double reverse
7. The lateral pass
8. Zone coverage
9. “Showing the blitz” - then dropping back into coverage
Oh, the humanity. We should get the UN involved.
Deford met his wife in Delaware and they were married in 1965 but divorced 20 years later when he was discovered to be a homosexual
Well, I dislike calling out a WWII vet regarding an opinion, but I disagree. I think Vince Lombardi would disagree too.
I am also curious what you and/or your father would classify as "cheating" when it comes to war against the country that conducted the Bataan death march and other atrocities.
In high school, we used to run a wierd, over shifted line play, where the right guard (me) was an elgible reciever. Our coach used to coach at a school where 8 man foot ball was played and this was a variant of those plays.
The first guys to know about the play were the refs as we wanted them to count noses on the line and in the backfield correctly.
Three posts? You need to get that stutter looked at, Jolla. ;-)
On the other hand, I'm also a big fan of the Vince Lombardi approach to coaching football. He never liked trick plays because he felt that a good team should always be able to line up and kick their opponents' @sses without resorting to that nonsense.
The two best plays Ive heard of were when a local radio station asked people to call in trick plays:
*In a game in Or with intense fog on the sides of the field, one team had 3 backs run to the sideline. After a few seconds, two guys went back to the huddle. No one realized the third guy was still on the field until the QB hit him for a TD
*A QB in the Shotgun formation sent a WR in motion. As the WR was motioning, he hopped sideways like a rabbit and made bunny ears with his hands. When he crossed the QB, the QB pretended to shoot the “rabbit” WR. While the defense fell down laughing, the center snapped it to the RB for a TD.
Benjamin "Frank" Deford, III[1] (born December 16, 1938, in Baltimore, Maryland) is a senior contributing writer for Sports Illustrated, author, and commentator for National Public Radio and correspondent for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO and the only openly homosexual Sportscaster to date.
We had a play that scored every time. When the other team kicked off to us, some times I had my offense on the field rather than the receiving team. Whoever got the ball had to run to the right side of the field and get outside the right hash mark and as far upfield as he could. He only had one blocker, the center. The ball carrier, when he was tackled, ran to the other hash mark where the rest of the team was. The center got over the football like he was going to hike the ball. The rest of the team was in a huddle on the other side of the field. When the quarter back said “Hut”, the center piched the ball clean across the field. The defense was lined up on the ball, on the other side. The quarterback had nine guys blocking for him. “Touchdown”
Technically, it wasn’t a true ‘statue of liberty’ play (even though it worked). In the true SOL, the quarterback poses like a statue with his arm extended backwards like he’s prepared to throw a pass and the running back takes the ball from his extended hand.
I saw one powder puff game where they did run the true SOL. Four times. Scored on three of them.
Very good! I may be wrong about this, but I believe NFL rules now prohibit any kind of trick plays involving offensive players running on and off the field before the snap.
One of the problems with some trick plays is that the offense runs the risk of fooling even the officials -- sometimes with bizarre results. Former Bengals QB Boomer Esiason was one of the best I've ever seen at executing a play-fake to one of his running backs. I mean, that guy would often fool TV camera crews, he was so good. There was one play back in the late 1980s where did such a great job at "selling" the play-fake that the officials whistled the play dead after the would-be ball carrier was tackled. Under NFL rules there was no way to undo the result of the play -- so that running back was credited with a two-yard gain even though he never touched the ball!
Frank, the lesson is, “Get on point and pay attention”- and that would include the opposing team’s coaching staff.
So for me that's all I'll say about it ....
The play worked so well, our coach decided we should try it our next game. As I neared the sideline the second time we tried it, the opposing coach was screaming at his players to tackle me. I got about 25 yards that time before about half the opposing team nailed me. I also got three chipped teeth out of that one. Unbelievably, our coach wanted to try the same stunt in the THIRD game of the season. I refused to run it. I wasn't about to get swarmed on again. He got another kid to run it and damned if we didn't get another TD out of it. We never tried it again.
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