Coach Suspended After 161-2 Win....

[lwien]

So what do ya'll think about this?

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/stor...asketball-coach-suspended-two-games-161-2-win

Me? I'm aligned with the guy in the clip.

 

[ChippyMalone]

When I was five, I got mad the very first time somebody didn't let me win a game of CandyLand. Luck was on their site and they couldn't let me win if they tried. I got mad and threw the game board across the room and stormed out crying. My whole world in which I was always the winner had crumbled.

However, I eventually learned that the game was more fun when there was a chance of losing, and that it wasn't worth playing if that uncertainty didn't exist.

I decided that I would not lie to children and would set a good example by playing their games fairly, but to win. My little nephew experienced his first loss playing a LEGO game with me. He was as unhappy as I was way back then and didn't talk to me all afternoon. But now he always wants to play with me because it is more fun and exciting when your don't know the outcome beforehand and can playfully tease your losing opponent.

If anything, the losing coach should not have brought an incompetent team to the game. If I had been him, I would have forfeited after the first quarter and then suggested we start a new shirts and skins game with the two new teams chosen by a playground lottery. Everyone would have had more fun with the time they had to play on the court, and maybe some new friendships could be made while learning good sportsmanship that does not degrade the losing team with pity points.​

 

[His_Highness]

Old Fart Alert....Back in my day....everyone didn't get a trophy just because they participated in a sport. We won some and we lost some. And it hurt sometimes. That's how we learned to play harder, smarter and improve. And that lesson applied to more than sports. It also taught us how to persevere in other areas like academics.

As far as what the winning coach did .... His job is to teach the kids discipline, good sportsmanship, basketball and how to WIN. He did the right thing for the first quarter by pushing his varsity squad hard for the full court press. They benefited from the work. After that he could have played the second string a bit more so they could benefit from some additional on court competitive work. I'm not saying he should have played the second string more to give the other team a chance...it was an opportunity to improve the skills of the second string that may benefit the team later. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

I agree with Chippy...I've played fair with my own kids and never 'cheated' by letting them win. I will admit to not playing to win at all costs and based on their skill levels I might play less hard to win because my job was to make it competitive enough so they could improve.

Getting knocked down isn't as important as getting back up. If you never get knocked down the shock alone may leave you on the floor.

 

[basement farmer]

104-2 at halftime, full court press and he didn't put in any second stringers until the third quarter? And his excuse? He didn't expect them to be that bad.

The guy sounds like an asshole douchebag to me.

High School athletics is mostly supposed be about life lessons, the rest is just about fun. Believe it or not, it is possible to have a winning team without being a dick about it. I wonder how the kids on his team feel about all this. Obviously they have a lot of talent, but it doesn't mean a thing if you can't compete against opponents that have comperable abilities and at least a chance of winning.

Winning feels good, and obviously somebody has to lose the game. But I don't know how anyone can feel like a winner when they humiliate their opponents to this degree. A good coach at any level wouldn't have done this.

As far as I would be concerned, his string of stunning victories are hollow.

 

[His_Highness]

Humiliating your opponent at the high school level like that is uncalled for.

But....I still don't agree with suspending the winning coach unless he had already received a warning or two and ignored the warnings.

 

[bussinrounds]

How could a game possibly be that one sided ?

Didn't read the article, but it sounds like whatever the league this was played in is not set up correctly or something.

 

[basement farmer]

Humiliating your opponent at the high school level like that is uncalled for.

But....I still don't agree with suspending the winning coach unless he had already received a warning or two and ignored the warnings.

That would be likely. Summary execution unlikely. He'd have some recourse otherwise you'd think.

How could a game possibly be that one sided ?

Didn't read the article, but it sounds like whatever the league this was played in is not set up correctly or something.

Simple. Huge talent margin between this team and the teams it seems to non-gender-bitch-slap with impunity. Probably a better all-around school in terms of funding and performance. Good enough that parent's will go out of their way to have their kids attend.
.
I played HS football. There was always one good team that kicked everyone's asses. But at least they'd show a little class and play their poor shmucks on bench who showed up to practice exactly the same as the stars.

They'd also try more risky shit, like passing on first and ten, or letting the linemen try running back. At least there was some fucking challenge and the other team got to make some plays.

Our JV team crushed a varsity team in a out of conference scrimmage. The coach didn't tell us before the game that they were varsity. He thought that knowledge would defeat us in our own heads which would latter explain to me the full bearded nose guard that I opposed.

We were pretty evenly matched and we had to work for our score, so we had no reason to rub it in their faces, which we wouldn't have done anyway (coach would've ripped us new ones for it).....it was a good game for both teams and we showed mutual respect. We learned that we earned it by our own hard work.

Assholes shouldn't be coaching children. If this guy is so awesome maybe he should move on to bigger things....but it's his talent bank and not him that's where it's at.

 

[His_Highness]

I'm going to take the other side of the debate for a moment and try and 'rationalize' why a coach, asshole or otherwise, might do what this coach did. Please don't mistake this counter point rationalization as anything near agreeing with what the coach did....

Is this coach a volunteer or a 'paid' coach with aspirations to move up in the coaching ranks? I had high school coaches who coached out of a love for the sport but were not paid coaches and I also had coaches who were PE teachers who were hired/'paid' to coach a sport. A paid coach and a volunteer coach both have an obligation to do the best job they can to prepare their team for future competitions but the paid coach could lose a job or reputation points. You know what happens to a low level coach who constantly creams his competition without a conscience? They become college coaches and so on.....

The game in question was a regular season game. Couldn't have been a state, regional or national tournament, because prior to the game in question there were several other games with a 70 point difference. The team that got beaten would have been eliminated by one of the other 70 point losing teams and wouldn't have made it to the states. The holy grail of high school sports are the states, regionals and nationals and the coach has an obligation to prepare his team for the more competitive tournaments. How much time is there between this regular season game and the state tournament and is this coach preparing his team for another team who is a real competitive threat? Is one of the keys to winning against the more competitive team(s) a run and gun approach to wear down a more talented team? In a case like this the coach might not like the idea of beating down the other team, or might not even care about humiliating the other team because he was tuning his team for the real threat just around the corner.

I also thought 'what an asshole' myself when I read the 'I didn't expect them to be that bad' quote. But then it struck me that maybe he was really surprised at how bad they were. He put the second squad in at the half and they still scored another 57 points. If he had put the second squad in at the beginning would the game have ended 114 to 2? If so....maybe the ref's should have called the game. I've seen that happen before too.

And lastly...where were the referees? Did they at anytime during the game take the two coaches aside?

Again, please don't take this as me agreeing with what the winning coach did. If it were me and any of the counterpoints above held water I would still have looked for ways to tune my team without humiliating the other. Maybe telling the team after the first quarter that we're going to have to run additional drills that evening or have an extra practice that week and in the meantime lets run some plays we're having trouble with.

 

[lwien]

GREAT debate guys. Lotsa bases being covered here with valid arguments from both sides of this issue.

When I first ran across this story, I only took one side of this argument but after hearing the different perspectives here, my view on this is a lot less myopic.

And that's why I hate to see threads that have a great debate going on get too personal 'cause then they get shut down and we lose the opportunity to learn.

 

[Solomon]

I also have trouble seeing this as a "everyone gets a trophy" thing. This wasn't even a contest. This was me, who has trouble walking, racing a HS track star. The end result was inevitable before it started. This was not a competition, so no lessons about competition can be found here.

The newscaster took an interesting approach - "the kids don't care, they will be fine". I got to agree, but even more so. The parents will also be fine. The school will be fine. The country will be fine. Because it doesn't matter. In fact, HS sports don't matter to anyone 99% of the time.

Last I looked, the USA did not have a shortage of professional athletes. In fact, colleges seem to produce at least 10x the number we really need.

But we do seem to have a shortage of teachers, doctors, and scientists.

 

[basement farmer]

OK, I'll dial it back a bit. Maybe the guy isn't an asshole. I don't know him, so I guess I'm jumping to conclusions. And usually, I'm the one taking the side of devils advocate

But that said, what he did.... it's still an asshole thing to do.

DIATRIBE BELOW



His team already crushed the same team once before. And the crushed others as well prior to this game. So everyone knew where this game was headed before it even started. Who'd even go to watch as a spectator? It'd be like watching baby seals getting clubbed.

Also, what was the point of full court press using his starting line up through the first half? Was he conncerned that they might of fell behind without a 100 point lead at half time? Five minutes into the game they probably knew it was over. I'm calling B.S. on this being an accident because it obviously wasn't.

Did they keep the clock running when the score got so high? Actually I'm just asking on this.

But Paid or volunteer I don't see that that matters. Most are doing it out of sheer generosity because with the exception of the few who make to collegiate and beyond, the pay is usually low or none. It's a competitive, high stress position that is half performance based, and half on luck. I wouldn't want to do it.

The people that I know that coach tend to be living vicariously as well, which isn't bad either...so long as they put the kids ahead of their own egos.

And yeah, I feel kind of bad for the kids on the team as well. It couldn't have been too sporting or much fun or fulfilling running up the score. For their own good, the coach should of considered finding a more evenly matched adversary.

So it's been real fun discussing the topic, and all. But with all due respect, my mind is made up.