We Won Because We Played
Blowout. Shellacked. Obliterate. Demolish. Annihilate. Smash. Trounce. Spank. All of these are terms used to help describe a game with a large margin of victory.
Is it wrong to win a basketball game 100-0? Obviously there is more to consider than just the score alone. Did the winning team press the entire game? Were they still chucking up three pointers in the 4th quarter? Were the starters still in the game in the 4th quarter? Winning 100-0 is not necessarily bad, but it is not good for either team it seems.
Well, this score did happen earlier this month. The Covenant School crushed Dallas Academy 100-0 on January 13th. I have read several articles, but I am not sure if I still have the entire picture of what happened. I have seen several comments from Dallas Academy parents regarding some poor sportsmanship by Covenant (continuing to press in the second half and shooting three-pointers in the 4th quarter). However, I really have not seen anything, other than the Covenant administrator's apology and forfeit of the game, from Covenant parents or staff to prove or disprove those comments. The Covenant coach, Mich Grimes, refused to apologize for his team's play as was subsequently terminated. We can probably all argue until we are blue about the game and its resulting consequences - the overall score, sportsmanship, mercy rules, the forfeit, the termination, etc.
My question is would this have been such a huge controversy if the score had be 100-2 or even 98-0? I personally feel that the whole stink about this story is due to the fact that Covenant scored 100 points and Dallas Academy scored zip, nada, nil, zilch, zero, nothing. Honestly, doesn't the fact Covenant scored in triple digits and Dallas Academy scored zero seem to magnify the shellacking here? If the scored HAD been 98-0 or 100-2, would the Dallas Morning News had picked up on the story? And if so, would this story have been run worldwide? I really think that the story would have been buried if that had happened.
There have been worse blowouts in high school basketball. Chicago (Young) defeated Chicago (Orr) 177-16 in girls basketball back in 1990. The worst blowout in boys basketball that I could find was a game 215-28 from 1992 between Jackson City, KY and Lexington Woodbridge Academy, KY. I was not able to find any stories on those games, so I don't know how much of a backlash came about from those blowouts. Hell, Cheryl Miller and Lisa Leslie both scored over 100 points in a single game! (Leslie scored hers in one half, the opponent refused to take the court in the second half.) Stories on both of those games focused on the fact the players hit the century mark, not that the teams obliterated their opponents or that the losing teams whined about the loss.
So to teams in the future, if you are going to obliterate your opponent, just make sure that you allow them to score at least one point.
Is it wrong to win a basketball game 100-0? Obviously there is more to consider than just the score alone. Did the winning team press the entire game? Were they still chucking up three pointers in the 4th quarter? Were the starters still in the game in the 4th quarter? Winning 100-0 is not necessarily bad, but it is not good for either team it seems.
Well, this score did happen earlier this month. The Covenant School crushed Dallas Academy 100-0 on January 13th. I have read several articles, but I am not sure if I still have the entire picture of what happened. I have seen several comments from Dallas Academy parents regarding some poor sportsmanship by Covenant (continuing to press in the second half and shooting three-pointers in the 4th quarter). However, I really have not seen anything, other than the Covenant administrator's apology and forfeit of the game, from Covenant parents or staff to prove or disprove those comments. The Covenant coach, Mich Grimes, refused to apologize for his team's play as was subsequently terminated. We can probably all argue until we are blue about the game and its resulting consequences - the overall score, sportsmanship, mercy rules, the forfeit, the termination, etc.
My question is would this have been such a huge controversy if the score had be 100-2 or even 98-0? I personally feel that the whole stink about this story is due to the fact that Covenant scored 100 points and Dallas Academy scored zip, nada, nil, zilch, zero, nothing. Honestly, doesn't the fact Covenant scored in triple digits and Dallas Academy scored zero seem to magnify the shellacking here? If the scored HAD been 98-0 or 100-2, would the Dallas Morning News had picked up on the story? And if so, would this story have been run worldwide? I really think that the story would have been buried if that had happened.
There have been worse blowouts in high school basketball. Chicago (Young) defeated Chicago (Orr) 177-16 in girls basketball back in 1990. The worst blowout in boys basketball that I could find was a game 215-28 from 1992 between Jackson City, KY and Lexington Woodbridge Academy, KY. I was not able to find any stories on those games, so I don't know how much of a backlash came about from those blowouts. Hell, Cheryl Miller and Lisa Leslie both scored over 100 points in a single game! (Leslie scored hers in one half, the opponent refused to take the court in the second half.) Stories on both of those games focused on the fact the players hit the century mark, not that the teams obliterated their opponents or that the losing teams whined about the loss.
So to teams in the future, if you are going to obliterate your opponent, just make sure that you allow them to score at least one point.
Labels: Blowouts, Dallas Academy, The Covenant School
posted by Zinglebert Bembledack at
11:01 AM
2 Comments:
You're probably right that the story was picked up because it was 100-0 and not 102-2, etc. The account I read focused on Covenant's apology and forfeit, which idicates to me that the only reason some outlets thought this was newsworthy was because the winning school wanted to forfeit--i.e. the blowout itself wasn't newsworthy enough.
I'd say another factor here is the "everyone wins" mentality that has taken over youth sports. I'm not saying that it's okay to run up a 100-point win on an opponent, but I think people have gotten much more sensitive to that sort of thing now. The scores you cited are from nearly 20 years ago; the most recent of those examples (Leslie) had the other team not want to play any more.
Personally, I like the term "hurt dance" to describe a blowout, but that's just me.
I'm with Slut on this one. Why do the poor little kiddies need to be protected from a humiliating defeat? Or from ANY defeat for that matter?
I was at my nieces last soccer game this past year and they had one only one game. Yet everyone on their team received a trophy. What kind of crap is that? When I was in little league, you didn't win, you got your certificate of participation and envied the team that got the trophy. THE trophy.
Sorry...I digress...I don't think Zinglebert was looking for a rant from "The Football Guy"...but damn!!!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home