Friday, January 23, 2009

Covenant High Wins 100-0? Not On My Watch!

The article on the AP reads, "A Texas high school girls basketball team on the winning end of a 100-0 game has a case of blowout remorse."

"Now officials from The Covenant School say they are trying to do the right thing by seeking a forfeit and apologizing for the margin of victory."

"A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers -- even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points."

I'm a parent. A parent who works extremely hard, every single day of my parenting life to teach my child right from wrong. I'm not perfect. I frequently mess up. When I mess up in my parenting I tell my son, "You know what? It's your first time being a kid. It's my first time being a parent. You screwed up. I screwed up."

My son is 22. My daughters are 19 and 17. I've screwed up at some point or another one or more times per day, every day for 22 years.

Never have I screwed up that bad, that my kids would participate in a High School sporting event that they won (or lost, for that matter) 100-0.

The Golden Rule, folks...Do Unto Others, As You Would Want Them To Do Unto You.

No one should ever get so "caught up in the moment" as one player's parent stated, that they should be on either end of a 100-0 ass whooping.

I've coached Youth baseball from T-Ball up. In T-Ball, there is a rule in which they don't keep score so that no one's feelings get hurt. Worst rule in sporting history. How can a child ever learn to be honest, to lose with dignity, the thrill of competition if they know that life is rigged to soften the blow.

With that understood, however, I teach my teams from the age of four to 24, that you don't ever win with a sense of disgrace or lose with a sense of disgrace.

I would have expected any of a number of things to occur before a team is involved on either end of a 100-0 score.

  • The team winning 59-0 at half time should leave the locker room and swap players with the other team.
  • The fans should flood the court putting an end to the blood bath.
  • The losing team should foul the winning team every time they touch the ball so the game continues indefinitely.

Caught up in the moment? That's what happened when Rodney King got beat up my an overzealous Police Department.

No place...No way...No how.