Coach fired after 100pt blowout

[punisher73]

High School Coach was fired after his team beat a special needs team 100-0. Coach refused to offer apology after his school issued one to the other school.

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video...//www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482785,00.html

Thoughts on this?

 

[MA-Caver]

I read about this last week and was surprised. There was a follow up on it where the winning team actually went and apologized (or regretted) for the trouncing they gave.
I don't think there's call for firing the coach. There's only so much a coach can do on the sides of the court it's the team that kept missing their shots time and again. But then again they were a "special needs" and so shouldn't be held accountable anyway in that regard.
One would think that the losing team should be admired for simply not giving up and playing to the end.

Isn't it the playing that's more important than winning or losing for these kids??

 

[Nolerama]

I wish the opposing coach was interviewed. Was he happy that his girls took seven shots at the basket?

It's sport: it's a test of physical skill against an opponent. If the learning-disabled team showed how tough they were by taking this game, and playing their best, then I think it's a win-win situation.

However, why were these two teams matched up anyway? Don't blame it on the coach. Blame it on whoever lumped those teams together.

If the girls from the winning team showed good sportsmanship then I see no problem. Personally, I think it would be bad sportsmanship if they just gave points away.

 

[exile]

I wish the opposing coach was interviewed. Was he happy that his girls took seven shots at the basket?

It's sport: it's a test of physical skill against an opponent. If the learning-disabled team showed how tough they were by taking this game, and playing their best, then I think it's a win-win situation.

However, why were these two teams matched up anyway? Don't blame it on the coach. Blame it on whoever lumped those teams together.

If the girls from the winning team showed good sportsmanship then I see no problem. Personally, I think it would be bad sportsmanship if they just gave points away.

That's my feeling too...

The matchup puts any coach in a no-win situation. The guy is supposed to be constantly encouraging his players to work hard, to go on the attack, to fight. This is part of successful coaching. Is he then supposed to go against both his own training as a coach, and the ethic of try-your-hardest he's trying to instill in the team whose success he's judged by, when facing a team that is so poorly matched with his own? If he does tell his players, OK, ease up on these kids, don't take legitimate shots, don't worry too much about shooting accurately, then he's conveying a very confusing message to his own young players. At the same time, of course, the lopsided victory rubs the noses of the special-needs kids in how far short they are of the standard of play their opponents are used to. They probably figured this anyway, but it could be pretty depressing to have it driven home so ruthlessly.

So I agree with Nolerama: the fault lay with whoever dreamed up the idea of this matchup. There were too many good reasons not to have a such a contest, I believe.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

I think the coach was fired for emailing the newspaper and being adamant that his views on the win were different from the schools.
If he had not tried to make a point out of his thinking he was right, and the school was blowing it out of proportion he would still be employeed.

Personally I think this is a perfect example of political correctness run Amok.

its a sport, let people play and win and whatnot. It is obvious those kids did not belong on the same court as each other. I understand a small school of 20 kids with 8 kids on the team wanting to compete, but maybe some more informal scrimage type games that seem just as meaningful when played, but not something that needs to be kept track of in the newpapers, and league sports is more in order.

 

[arnisador]

Telling people not to do their best isn't good sportsmanship, it's bad athletics. This sounds like an ill-conceived match. The coach should not be fired.

It would've been nice to see the players switch to trying some of their hardest, lowest-percentage moves in such a game, but they shouldn't be penalized for playing hard. If they were trash-talking after it got to 25-0, then I'd say they showed poor sportsmanship. One doesn't have to be training warriors to defend Sparta to have some competitive attitude. It's a game. Someone wins and someone loses. The coach spoke about it:

Grimes also included the quarter-by-quarter scoring on his post: 35, 24, 29, 12.

[...]

He was in his fourth season as girls basketball coach, having built the program from a 2-19 record his first season to a state championship contender last season.

It also says: Dallas Academy, renowned for its work with students who have learning disabilities, is winless this season and has not won a game in at least four seasons.

Sounds like a bad match-up. If these students are learning-disabled it's unclear to me whether they are also athletically-disabled?

 

[Thesemindz]

High School Coach was fired after his team beat a special needs team 100-0. Coach refused to offer apology after his school issued one to the other school.

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video...//www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482785,00.html

Thoughts on this?

I went to a normal every day government school with regular kids, and our women's high school basketball team lost 50-0, and our men's high school basketball team lost 100-2.

As far as I know, no one lost their jobs on either side of the court.

It was embaressing, but we almost always lost sports competitions, so we understood that our school sports teams kinda sucked. In a way, you have to admire the kids who went out game after game, knowing they were gonna get blown out.

I suppose the coach could have required his kids to make ten passes before each shot, but what else is he supposed to do? Forfeit?


-Rob

 

[searcher]

Its a game, not a practice. If the other school was worried about getting blown out, then they should nto have been playing the one team. The coach should not be required to apologize. It is all a part of it.

 

[grydth]

I'll vote to despise all of them.

Running up a score against a clearly outmatched opponent to me is a *********** thing to do. These are the same folks who whine when its done to them. It is also a great way to get a needless injury or have a fight started. Any decent coach would've played his subs and throttled back.

Forced to apologize for winning? Too politikally korrect for me.... why even keep score, then? Just have the refs declare at the end that all players are "okay" and hand out little trophies for participation.

As bad as getting blown out in one game may be, it has to pale against 4 years of being winless. Why does their own school allow that? Why isn't their own school worried enough to just go intramural or get them into a more appropriate league.... or fire their coach and get them some better leadership?

Why isn't there a throw in the towel rule in that league, where both can agree at a given point that Team A wins and just go home early?

 

[Carol]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...up-score-in-100-0-high-school-game-fired.aspx

It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened,” the school said in its statement. “This clearly does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition. The school and its representatives in no way support or condone the running up of a score against any team in any sport for any reason.

So scheduling a mismatch with differently-abled kids was a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition?

Sacking the livelyhood of the coach for doing what he was hired to do and what he was proven to have done (win games) was a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition?

Sorry, this looks way too political to be a matter of "WWJD"

 

[Thesemindz]

I'll vote to despise all of them.

Running up a score against a clearly outmatched opponent to me is a *********** thing to do. These are the same folks who whine when its done to them. It is also a great way to get a needless injury or have a fight started. Any decent coach would've played his subs and throttled back.

Forced to apologize for winning? Too politikally korrect for me.... why even keep score, then? Just have the refs declare at the end that all players are "okay" and hand out little trophies for participation.

As bad as getting blown out in one game may be, it has to pale against 4 years of being winless. Why does their own school allow that? Why isn't their own school worried enough to just go intramural or get them into a more appropriate league.... or fire their coach and get them some better leadership?

Why isn't there a throw in the towel rule in that league, where both can agree at a given point that Team A wins and just go home early?

On ESPN just now they reported that the winning team only pressed for the first 25 points of the game and then only scored 12 points in the fourth quarter.

12 points in fifteen minutes of one sided basketball doesn't sound like running up the score to me. They have to shoot the ball every thirty seconds or they turn it over. Should the players have intentionally missed their shots? Should they have thrown the game?

I don't mean this as an attack on you, I'm just saying that I don't see much fault in the players or the coach. He didn't get fired for running it up, he got fired for publicly disagreeing with the school administrators. The Man don't like that business.

I think people should ask why these games are getting scheduled in the first place? Is the school all right with their team losing for more than 4 years? Maybe they are, maybe it's the only way their kids get to play ball. Maybe their kids are just happy to get to play with other kids.

I don't know. But it seems like they should've known going in that they were outmatched. ESPN reported that the special needs school only had 20 female students, and that 8 of them were on the team. When half your population makes the varsity team, it probably isn't a great team.

If that coach pressed for four quarters, if he fouled the other teams players to stop the clock late, if he was lining up his players for three pointers, then he's a jerk, and he deserved to be fired. Just because he won the game doesn't make him a jerk.

There's a difference between playing to win, and playing to shame your opponent. So far, I haven't heard they did any more than the first.


-Rob

 

[arnisador]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...up-score-in-100-0-high-school-game-fired.aspxSacking the livelyhood of the coach for doing what he was hired to do

Sounds like he wasn't paid--at least, he wasn't full-time. (From the story I quoted above: "Grimes did not teach or work at The Covenant School.") But yeah, you have to wonder about the whole WWJD thing...what was Jesus' opinion of competitive sports? Is that covered in the bible?

12 points in fifteen minutes of one sided basketball doesn't sound like running up the score to me.

The claim is that they ran it up to 100 points, then backed off...which happened to be in the fourth quarter.

If that coach pressed for four quarters, if he fouled the other teams players to stop the clock late, if he was lining up his players for three pointers, then he's a jerk, and he deserved to be fired. Just because he won the game doesn't make him a jerk.

There's a difference between playing to win, and playing to shame your opponent. So far, I haven't heard they did any more than the first.

Agreed. And indeed, if half the school is on your team...you're out of your league no matter what league you're playing in.

If you want a pre-determined outcome, play the Washington Generals.

 

[Thesemindz]

The claim is that they ran it up to 100 points, then backed off...which happened to be in the fourth quarter.

I'm just splitting hairs here, but 100 point games are not that uncommon when both teams are competitive. I think it would be some kind of feat to only score 100 points on a team that couldn't put up a single shot.

I don't know man, I wasn't there. It just doesn't seem all that bad to me. And it seems pretty obvious the school didn't fire him for winning, even by a hundred points, they fired him for daring to buck the party line.

That doesn't earn them much in my book.


-Rob

 

[grydth]

On ESPN just now they reported that the winning team only pressed for the first 25 points of the game and then only scored 12 points in the fourth quarter.

12 points in fifteen minutes of one sided basketball doesn't sound like running up the score to me. They have to shoot the ball every thirty seconds or they turn it over. Should the players have intentionally missed their shots? Should they have thrown the game?

I don't mean this as an attack on you, I'm just saying that I don't see much fault in the players or the coach. He didn't get fired for running it up, he got fired for publicly disagreeing with the school administrators. The Man don't like that business.

I think people should ask why these games are getting scheduled in the first place? Is the school all right with their team losing for more than 4 years? Maybe they are, maybe it's the only way their kids get to play ball. Maybe their kids are just happy to get to play with other kids.

I don't know. But it seems like they should've known going in that they were outmatched. ESPN reported that the special needs school only had 20 female students, and that 8 of them were on the team. When half your population makes the varsity team, it probably isn't a great team.

If that coach pressed for four quarters, if he fouled the other teams players to stop the clock late, if he was lining up his players for three pointers, then he's a jerk, and he deserved to be fired. Just because he won the game doesn't make him a jerk.

There's a difference between playing to win, and playing to shame your opponent. So far, I haven't heard they did any more than the first.


-Rob

This is being reported pretty differently on msnbc, and the source difference may account for our differing views.

What I read indicates that this team did keep shooting 3 point shots in the second half, to include the 4th quarter. There was also "wild cheering" on the part of their fans and 1 coach as they neared 100 points.

Obviously one team thought it was an incredible achievement to notch 100 points on another team which could not even score 1 basket. That nice round "100" is no mere coincidence.

I don't know a great deal about southern girls basketball; I tend to enjoy AHL hockey in Central New York. Now, pulling this kind of stunt will generally result in the other team putting its enforcer(s) out and subsequent fights all over the rink and maybe in the stands as well. This runs for other sports as well... rubbing somebody's face in a score can result in their rubbing your face onto the ice or into the turf. I wonder if the newly unemployed coach ever taught his team that lesson.

 

[Thesemindz]

This is being reported pretty differently on msnbc, and the source difference may account for our differing views.

What I read indicates that this team did keep shooting 3 point shots in the second half, to include the 4th quarter. There was also "wild cheering" on the part of their fans and 1 coach as they neared 100 points.

Obviously one team thought it was an incredible achievement to notch 100 points on another team which could not even score 1 basket. That nice round "100" is no mere coincidence.

I don't know a great deal about southern girls basketball; I tend to enjoy AHL hockey in Central New York. Now, pulling this kind of stunt will generally result in the other team putting its enforcer(s) out and subsequent fights all over the rink and maybe in the stands as well. This runs for other sports as well... rubbing somebody's face in a score can result in their rubbing your face onto the ice or into the turf. I wonder if the newly unemployed coach ever taught his team that lesson.

You know, I think this makes for an interesting take on modern news outlets. Usually you see this kind of drastic difference in perspective with relation to political opponents, but here we clearly have two differing perspectives with regards to the same story.

One pro sports new outlet is defending the coaches actions as the spirit of sport and defending the coach and his players.

The other news outlet appears to be attacking the coach and defending the other schools as victims of bad sportsmanship.

I just think it's interesting, and having not been there, I suppose we'll never know the truth of the matter.

As to your point about putting the hurt on poor sports who run up the score on overwhelmed opponents, I'm for it. When the Pats were running it up on every team they played, I didn't understand why no one put a hat on Brady's knee. That would of put a stop to that crap in a hurry.


-Rob

 

[grydth]

Rob, you're right - I find I usually have to read several sources to even hope of getting a full picture on anything. Even then, sometimes multiple media outlets are clearly just drawing from the same source.

A coach that teaches running up the score needs to also teach about the consequences, lawful and otherwise. Violent retaliation in sports is a reality, whether we approve or not.... and running up a score is one way to provoke it.

Treat the other guy like a dog and do not be surprised when you get bit.