A rare act of sportsmanship
 

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=914609 (work safe)

That's pretty damn awesome.

:sniff:



I'll admit to welling up...

something in my eye.

good story. thank you.
gonna have to pass that on.

I think it's a little over cynical to call this a "rare" act. Rare, perhaps, in the sense that it's a pretty unlikely scenario to arise again any time soon. But, and I'm pretty damned cynical, I would imagine that just about any other group of people put in the situation would have responded the same way.

Except perhaps for the Covenant School. Although they would probably feel bad about it the next day.

Well, yeah, but they're girls, so that's expected.

If fairness to the coach, the spread was 98, the over/under was 99, and he had a bet down.

Things like this happen much more often than is publicized, but it's still cool.

Things like the girls 100-0 happen much more than is publicized. I personally witnessed a 104-4 girls game about 15 years ago. No excuse for it, really. I coached a game in which the other team was so bad we had 40 before the other team had even taken a shot and we only won by 55. You can do all sort of things to keep the margin down without even being insulting to the other team.

see.

We have a mercy rule in Headliners league, if your team is up by 15 you can't do a full court press. This is enforced by having the girls all "stay in the paint" on defence.

With our entire team in the paint we block almost every shot and get almost every rebound. It seems counterproductive to me.

You have 5 defenders in the lane? I can see 5 defenders inside the three point line, but in the lane?

Yup in the lane.

Oddly, no team has ever managed to work their way out of the mercy rule against us.

Mercy rules? What a bunch of pussies (and I mean both the boys and the girls).

Here I thought they were playing sports. My mistake.

:p

I only say this because I would never ever ever play team sports in front of others.

Aw. What a touching story.
:)

Is that why I touched myself while reading it?









(um, it was to dab my somehow leaking eyes.)

I'm glad to hear that. I was hoping it wasn't a super rare thing (though I'd hope kids' moms dying would be a non-existent thing, of course!)

????? So they miss 7 foot open baseline shots the rest of the game? Or they could take all the open threes they want....long shot = long rebound so they should get several attempts each trip. I find this flabbergasting and have never heard of such a rule. What age are these girls?

I would presume that if the lead got back down below 15, the defense would be freed from the key.

I've found that mercy rules are usually implemented where there are classless coaches who intentionally run up the score.

When I say run up the score, I don't mean continue to play hard. I mean keep your starters in and try everything to score as much as possible. For example, my man defense usually plays aggressively out to 26 or 27 feet. If we're up by a large margin, I pull that back to 21 feet and they can hold the ball at 30 feet for the rest of the game if they choose.

I think that's what he said. I was just shocked when he said that no one ever closed to within the mercy rule margin again. Have to play some pretty bad D and miss a whole lot of shots for that to happen.

A few years ago we were winning by a significant margin at half time in the last game of the season. Some kid on their team hadn't scored all season. Their coach approached before me the start of the second and told me that, so I agreed to tell my guys to defend a baseline screen the wrong way so this kid could get open. After about 3 times, he finally hit an open shot at the rim.

Some people are against that, but what harm does it do? If the kid hasn't scored all season he obviously isn't going to think he's all that hitting one wide open one in the last game. I have no problem letting a kid feel a bit of accomplishment.

Several years ago, there was some girl on....Tennessee maybe?....who was 1 point away from the collegiate scoring record and got injured. The next game she started in a soft cast, and as prearranged with the other team, they got the tip and she hit an open shot art the rim. The other team then scored an uncontested layup. I'm actually against something like that because that took a record away from someone else.

11-12. Correct.

This is a rec team, there are plenty of no mercy sports teams around here also.

And then there was Brett Farv-reh's soccer flop that gave Michael Strahan the sack record.

Yeah -I don't know why anyone would want to own a record that way.

At first the linked story read like it was going to say that the one team lost on purpose because of the emotional loss experienced by the other team. And that, to me, isn't good sportsmanship.

But this story is fine. I agree it isn't a rare display of sportsmanship, just rare as a way that good sportsmanship can be displayed (see also, story from last year of opposing team that carried batter who hit home run around the bases after she broke her leg running the bases).

As for the 100-0 basketball game, I got flamed to hell for it on MousePad but I don't view that as particularly poor sportsmanship. Definitely poor scheduling.

Same thing happened last year with O's team (7 & 8yos) except at the end of the game, the other team completely stepped away and let the girl shoot 3 times until she made a shot. Girls from both teams celebrated the basket. Kudos to all coaches of young kids who try to instill the idea that sports is about more than winning. (As opposed to the coach of the team they played last week who coached and encouraged his team to shove and elbow our girls throughout the game.)

I don't know of any coach who wouldn't have done the same thing in that situation. There just aren't too many coaches who are interested in picking up two points in that manner.
I've had that same situation where I've drawn up plays for the kid who hasn't scored all season but I'll be damned if I'd ever go begging to the opposing coach. Run the play and spring the kid open for a shot...it's not that difficult. Kids know a rigged situation when they see one, and most kids will not respect such an obvious farce.

Well, it wasn't like I told them to lie down. I just told them to defend a screen improperly - turn and chase the screener, defender of the man geting the screen stays too far on the weakside and gets hung up on it. A common mistake.

Plus, my defense is so good that coaches can't draw up plays for open shots against it. :)

Also, I knew the other coach - there was some relationship there. It isn't like he just came over and begged.

I don't blame you for what you did, sca. It would probably have been some sort of dick move on your part if you had told him no. I just think the coach should have found a way to get the kid a legit basket. This assumes, of course, that the coach hadn't been trying to do just that all season. Who knows? Either way, credit to the coach for recognizing the importance of a basket to that child. I've seen many coaches who don't notice or don't care about such things.

Well as someone who coached several sports for Special Olympics for over 10 years let me thank those of you who both volunteer your time to coach and who have the philosophy that there's more to sports than the big Win ... sportsmanship and compassion are more valuable than any other gift you can give those kids as a life lesson IMHO. I'm not such a Pollyanna that I'll say that winning isn't important because we all know to those kids it is, but teaching them to be good sports while winning seems to be a concept being lost along the way for some coaches.

Win with honor, lose with dignity, play to win, and respect your opponents. Don't do those things, you never play for me.

I like the Special Olympics motto:

“Let me win but if I can not win let me be brave in the attempt”

So do I...playing for the love of the sport...

Two men enter, one man leaves...

*shudder* There isn't enough ham in the world to supply that nightmare scenario.

MBC would be happy, though.

And thanks, ABG. Glad to see SOMONE here understands my value to society. :)