HS Basketball team slaughter 100 – 0

There was a thread a bit ago, before he was fired:

http://able2know.org/topic/128425-1

I think it was bad sportsmanship on his part but getting fired for it is a bit much. Maybe it was one of those last-straw dealies.

From the Dallas Academy (the losing team) website:


Sorry for the long cut-and-paste. Just to let you know what Dallas Academy
is about. There are 20 girls, total, at the school. There are eight girls, total,
on the varsity basketball team. They've never won a game.

Here's what AD Jeremy Civello had to say.


GO BULLDOGS!

You are my new favorite team.

I've got no problem with the firing. I thought it should happen from the get-go, and not just because the coach wouldn't agree with the apology issued by the school. There is a shot clock in HS girls basketball, so shots have to go up, but pressing in that situation is beyond the pale.

No, the winning team should not "pull back" just because their competitor has any kind of handicap. It's up to the team's coach with the handicap to know whether they can be competitive in sports with all comers. The lesson they learned is that they should compete with other teams with like handicaps if they wish to compete "fairly." They learned a valuable lesson; work harder to become better or don't compete.

I am kind of torn which is the best approach. I mean you play sports to win right? You are being taught to be competitive right? Then what is wrong with it? But then again - you can teach a valuable life lesson by being compassionate right?

I don't think it is a black and white. However, I think the "winning" team would have benefited by putting in their second string players. Gives them an opportunity and experience in a game and gives the first string a chance to rest. To me that would be an appropriate compromise.

I agree though - that this Dallas team has the best spirit - you gotta love their attitude.

One other thing - this hits a personal note. My daughter is on a city league in basketball - now granted we are talking about 3rd and 4th graders so it is a bit different as the objective of these teams (that all play at the same location) is to teach the basics. There is one team that has almost all tall players and more experienced players. They always cream the other 3 teams - by triple or more.

Some parents have complained, that they should spread out the tall/experienced girls and those with different strengths to make the teams more equal and give opportunity for all players to improve.

The coaches of this team don't want to because they don't want to lose the girls they have developed and worked with. Sadly I think this will result in many of the girls moving to another league within the city.

To lie to those handicapped in any form is not a good lesson for them. I blame the team's coach for not accepting the fact that they were not prepared to compete with a team that could not only destroy their confidence, but teach them a lesson that they should not compete with others of similar skills.

The coach should have prepared the team to at least be somewhat competitive, and explained that they should not expect to score much. Knowing this, it was up to the coach to not place his team in this kind of situation. They can always compete with others with similar handicaps such as the Special Olympics.

I agree - I think that this team should have been in some sort of other league - they did seem to handle it well and it appears they learned something from it - to still work hard even though they were down.

However, I still think the other team could have benefited overall by putting in their second string and they would have looked good too!

I don't get it though - my son played baseball for his highschool and these kids were not special needs and were in a competitive 3A league and even they had the ten run rule - if one of the teams was ten runs ahead by the fifth inning - the game was called.

I don't know what the impetus was behind the rule - maybe to just save time - some of those baseball games took forever. But as well as being pragmatic - it acted to save the kids on whichever team was getting creamed getting totally demoralized and having their faces wiped in a loss.

I've watched a lot of games in baseball, basketball, and soccer teams of boys and girls from kindergarten through varsity highschool and neither of my kids ever played for a coach who would have done this. And they played for some pretty intense coaches.

I guess you could look at it that these girls got some good practice playing against people who were stronger athletes - but I think it sucks that the coach didn't put in the second string. I bet the parents of the second string who don't get the opportunity to play much were as upset as the parents of the girls on the other team. Maybe that factored into why the coach got fired - how much you want to bet?

They don't expect to score much. They never have. They typically get
beaten by scores of 40 or 50 to single digits. But this is a score of 100 to 0.
Do you think that that just happened to be the final score? Hell, no. They
deliberately set out to do that just because they could. That's showboating.
That's just rubbing their nose it.

Oh, and these kids aren't necessarily disabled. They just have different ways of
learning. If they had a larger enrollment of girls, the team would no doubt be
better.

After the girls' game, the boys played. Dallas Academy beat Covenant.

The idea of "sports" has become an oxymoron.

How so?

Sports has become something other than what it used to be. It's now about muscle enhancing drugs, cheating, and trying to break the rules without getting caught.

If we go back several decades, sports used to be a place where fans could enjoy the game in a somewhat level playing field.

Most teams now turn-over to the point its difficult to know who your home team players are. Wait a couple of years, and you wouldn't recognize anyone.

Can't really argue with those points, cicerone imposter.

Several points:

1) The losing team hasn't won a game in 4 years
2) The losing team lost all previous games by 50pt margins.
3) The winning coach DID let up...however, he didn't pull his team completely from the floor or order them to shoot baskets at their own basket. His team was taking the ball from the losers and running it to the basket. So, he told them to stop taking it to the basket and only shoot the low percentage 3-pointers. This slowed the scoring completely, as evidenced by the box scores per quarter of 35, 24, 29, 12.
12 points in the fourth quarter is four 3-pointers...that's a LOOONG boring quarter
4) The winning team hired this coach because they were 2-19. He brought them up to a state championship contender last season. Short of pulling all his girls off the floor, a coach can't make a 7th grader NOT play. They're there TO play.
5) No one complained of a "running up the score" when the winning team lost by 60 points earlier in the season...why? Blowouts are common in junior high girls basketball.
6) The losing team had learning disabilities...ADD and ADHD...they were not physically disabled.

I have questions on all this -

Why did the losing team schedule this in the first place?

Why didn't the losing team forfeit at the half?

With a 4 year losing streak, why does the losing coach still have his job? He obviously isn't teaching basketball...what is he doing during practice?

How does the winning coach FORCE his girls to stop trying? He tried making them only shoot long shots but everyone faults him for that... Should he have played with 2 players to their 8? Should his team have handed the ball back to the other team whenever they took it?

How does a school hire a coach to bring their team up from 2-19 to a state championship contender and fire him for winning?

Now that I see it broken down like that, I think those are all good points.
I am wondering though- did he substitute? That's the major exception I'd take- is if he continued to play his first string throughout the game.
I think it has something to do with the attitude that in school sports it's become all about winning and I mean ALL about winning - nobody wants anybody to have to lose anymore.
So even if you win - if it looks like you 'caused' someone else to lose too badly - you lose.
And the attitude of the winners can effect peoples' perceptions toward them - as they went into the game, as they played the game, and as they received the outcome of the game.
*The ADD and ADHD could work against the team functioning as a cohesive whole- short attention spans, lack of impulse control and planning and strategizing...and that's everyone on the team apparently? That could explain a lot.
I think it's good they're playing sports though -hopefully they'll continue.

The full-court press part doesn't really jibe with the rest of your take, BigTexN.

Nor do accounts of everyone on the winning team getting very excited as the score got closer to 100. That was apparently the new goal for the game -- score 100 points.

I think the disability aspect is a red herring, neither here nor there. This would have been poor sportsmanship no matter who the opponents were.

1) The losing team hasn't won a game in 4 years
True

2) The losing team lost all previous games by 50pt margins.
False -- close, but false. Lost to Yavneh 55-6, to Fairhill 49-7

3) The winning coach DID let up...however, he didn't pull his team completely from the floor or order them to shoot baskets at their own basket. His team was taking the ball from the losers and running it to the basket. So, he told them to stop taking it to the basket and only shoot the low percentage 3-pointers. This slowed the scoring completely, as evidenced by the box scores per quarter of 35, 24, 29, 12.
12 points in the fourth quarter is four 3-pointers...that's a LOOONG boring quarter
He slowed down when they were sure of getting a 100-0 final. That's what I
object to. I think that's rubbing their noses in it.

4) The winning team hired this coach because they were 2-19. He brought them up to a state championship contender last season. Short of pulling all his girls off the floor, a coach can't make a 7th grader NOT play. They're there TO play.
7th graders? I thought this was high school.
Of course they should play.

5) No one complained of a "running up the score" when the winning team lost by 60 points earlier in the season...why? Blowouts are common in junior high girls basketball.
I'm not complaining about running up the score, I'm complaining about
manipulating the score. If the game had ended 98-2, I'd have nothing to say.

6) The losing team had learning disabilities...ADD and ADHD...they were not physically disabled.
True.