Sore Winners: When Blowouts Are Morally Wrong

January 23, 2009 / 1:40 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Imagine a High School basketball team playing another team and winning 100-0. Imagine the beaten team was from a school that helps special needs kids. Imagine the coach of the winners doesn’t put the bench into the game until the 4th quarter. From MSNBC:

A Dallas school whose girl’s basketball team beat another team 100-0 has apologized, calling its win “shameful” and “a victory without honor.”

The Covenant School of Dallas also asked to forfeit the game against The Dallas Academy, a school that specializes in teaching children with learning problems.

What is the right thing to do?

Here’s the deal: A team of special needs kids shouldn’t even be playing in a league with regular kids. I mean why would their coach and school do that to them? By their coach’s own accord, the team hasn’t won a game in four years.

The team that achieved the blowout may have used the game for practice purposes. That is, the coach tried new plays and used the obviously lackluster defense as an opportunity for his team. There is a chance, after all, that putting the scrubs in earlier wouldn’t have mattered. It’s not like the losing team made any points in the fourth quarter, either.

Should the winning team just have given up and stopped?

I put the responsibility for this situation not on the blowout winners, but on the coach and school of the losing team. If your school is going to play in a certain league, then the players should be suitable for that league. And if that league is the only choice, well, the team has to face the fact that they’ll be losing a lot and that they are playing for the joy of playing and not necessarily winning.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Posted in Corrupted Culture
Tags: •

  • Naqamel

    100-0 is beyond excessive. The bench should have been put in with a 20 point lead, and the third stringers put in with a 40 point lead.

    As far as the leagues – it’s the only one available, and the losing team in the 100-0 game cancelled the rest of their schedule.

    There is no reason to run up the score. Ever. Especially in a game like basketball – tell your players to only attempt deep 2 point jump shots, stop getting rebounds, etc.

    Same thing applies to football. When you’re blowing out another team, just hand the ball to your running back, and run out the clock.

  • http://whatsit2you.blogspot.com Charlie on PA Tpk

    Saw your tweet …

    I’ve read this on another site and immediately thought the Covenant team – the winners – have no reason to apologize. Would it have been better if they provided NO defense, and allowed the Dallas team to serve their layups without challenge? Then they would be accused of not giving the team of special need kids a fair shot.

    I am sure after a time, the Covenant team got excited at reaching the hallmark 100 points, and that’s why they relaxed at the end of the second half.

    There’s nothing wrong with being a winner.

  • http://melissaclouthier.com Dr. Melissa Clouthier

    Is it somehow better to have a score 50-0? I can see putting the bench in earlier. But I played on a great team in HS and remembered a similar situation and our coach told us to not be aggressive, only shoot when there was no other choice and we worked on new plays, new defenses, etc. It was essentially a glorified practice. And still, I think the score ended up being 88-10 or something. That was without even trying.

    I think it’s a stupid situation all the way around.

  • Cousin Dave

    The one problem I have with Covenant is their not going to their bench until late in the game. If it’s like a typical school team, those bench players get very few chances to play. Their purpose is to keep stats and run errands; they don’t get to practice with the starters, and they get very little time with the coach. And yet they put up with all of it, for the 2-3 times a year chance to play a few minutes in a blowout game. So when that chance comes, and then the coach doesn’t put them in, yeah, I call that shameful.

    Other than that, I don’t have a problem with what Melissa wrote.

  • http://morethan140chars.wordpress.com Greg

    I don’t blame either team, but the league setup, and whoever those ‘officials’ are — or I blame both teams for even playing.
    But what person in their right mind would watch such a game and not grasp immediately that something was wrong with the whole thing? not one team or the other.

  • mj

    I would agree that scheduling a game with a special needs team is an exceptionally bad idea.

    Some years back, I watched a basketball game between a church youth group and a group of elders and pastors. Inexplicably, the middle-aged guys beat the pants off the teens. It was fun to watch until it became clear that the pastors and elders were hyper-aggressive, egotistical, had no self-control.

    It really can be painful to watch.

  • Trish

    The win was not shameful, and the winners should not have apologized.
    The setup was shameful. There was no excuse for putting the losing team up against an opponent that was so obviously out of their league. Teams should play other teams that are at approximately their own level of skill and achievement. Otherwise, it’s meaningless, whether you are the winner or the loser. If playing in this league is the only choice, then perhaps the team should not be in league play at all.
    Whoever set this game up is who deserves the blame.

  • Greg W.

    It is all part of mainstreaming which started, I believe, with school integration in the South. To have tracked kids would have been continuing discrimination.

    Tough call: I think the winning team would have done a disservice to the losers by easing up on them too much. The interview with losing members appeared like they took it pretty well.

    I guess if I were the coach of the special needs kids, I would put it to them straight but with as much compassion as I could muster. Do you want to play, knowing that you may never win a game and possibly be embarrassed by the score. If they say, then play and treat them like they will be treated as adults in a competitive world. (Well, maybe the new administration will ease the pain of competition for us all.)

  • http://hypersanity.blogspot.com/ Franco

    The only way a good coach should handle this situation is put his weakest players in.

    Playing bad teams will make your team worse. Playing good teams makes your team better and thus the ebb and flow of championships and how great teams devolve and weaker teams become better. Because great teams are not challenged and must play down to the level of their opponents.

    When the NBA players were allowed in the Olympics they kicked butt – for a while. But the higher level of competition inspired the weaker European teams to improve.

    If there ever was a winning strategy in gambling it is this: Find a team that is on a winning streak when they are up against a weak team that has something to prove and take the weak team with the points.

  • http://lsattestprep.org LSAT Test Prep

    Statistically, then, about 8 of the winners of our 17 sweepstakes airplanes should have been owners. In fact, only five have been owners. Sore losers in all …

  • http://www.fertibella.com/get-pregnant/fertility-pills fertility pills

    Walking slowly on sore knees toward his seat across from pit road, the same section through the years (“because that's where the action is”), Jack recalled the infield at the new Daytona International Speedway as a no man's land.