By now, most have heard about the Covenant School's 100-0 victory over Dallas Academy Jan. 13.
Yesterday, Covenant fired Coach Micah Grimes, calling the blowout "shameful." Grimes, however, emailed the Dallas Morning News disagreeing with the decision.
I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed," Grimes wrote in the e-mail, according to the newspaper.
The game has ignited an old debate on message boards about whether or not playing such a game is running up the score, or just how the cookie crumbles.
What I thought most interesting in the story released today is that Texas has no mercy rule in girl's basketball. Why not? It's the right thing to do.
In California, our mercy rule states that when a team attains a 40-point lead the clock then runs, not stopping for timeouts or free throws, even if the lead again dips below 40.
Story link: http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/9134384?MSNHPHMA
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The following was posted on www.communityhoops.com
http://communityhoops.blogspot.com/2009/01/should-games-outcome-be-controlled.html
I recently read and posted the story from Rivals.com's web site on the team looking to forfeit a 100-0 win.
I guess this raises a few questions. Some of which might be - what was the winning team's (or any other team in this same situation) motivation in such a lopsided win? Where the players on the roster used to minimize such a score to the best of the coaches ability? Do you tell your players not to score or not play the game to score? Where the attitudes of the players ON BOTH SIDES respectful to the situation?
I understand that there are some games that cannot be "removed" from a schedule and that teams all play at various levels of ability. With this said, my questions I raised above only scratch the surface of the issues involved in such a score and I would hope that if a coach leads his team in a disrespectful way while on ether end of a score like this, that the school or district administrators take STRONG disciplinary action such as a 2 game suspension or even removal from the coaching position.
We do not need adults teaching or encouraging kids/players to be disrespectful when such a "life activity" comes up later whether it is in sports, work, or life in general. As good of a coach as they might be for the fundamentals and strategies of the game, if they cannot teach other life skills in such times they do not belong coaching my child.
You raise some excellent questions, and it would be interesting to know what really was behind that. Someone on "The Summitt" board said the losing school had players on the team who had physical disabilities. If this were the case, another question would be, did Grimes know this?
I guess the most immediate question is, what do you do if the score is going up so high? Do you ask the ref to call off the game at the end of the third?
This story made http://detentionslip.org ! Check it out for all crazy headlines from our schools.
If I am the coach of a team who is down 59-0 at the half, my 1st consideration would be the effect it is having on my players. Did the opposing coach give his kids an option of forfeiting at that point.
I do question the motivation in a 100-0 game where players are jacking up 3 pointers even at the end of the game. It does seem unsportmanlike. And in my opinion that reflects on the coach. It is like the team who puts on a full court press when they are up by 25 points, with 3 minutes left to go. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
And one other consideration is that because Covenant is religous based school where I am sure they are taught, respect, humanity, treat others like you want to be treated and most definitely mercy. None of that seems to have been practiced in this victory.
So I am sure the higher ups at Covenant were thinking along those lines when he called it shameful (maybe not the best choice of words).
Should the team be embarassed about their victory, no. They won. But they might want to look at how they won and the impression it gave.
Hall Monitor: thanks for the heads-up on your site. That is awesome, and I wish I'd known about it before. I'm going to let some of my other teacher colleagues know about it.
Kailapea: I can't disagree with anything you've said there, my friend.
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