They Only Fire The Winning Coaches Now

In a girl's high school basketball game the other day, The Covenant School beat Dallas Academy 100-0. As amazing of a feat as that is, the more amazing part is that the winning coach was fired for not taking it easy on Dallas Academy. I mean yes, the margin of victory was pretty large, but this is high school sports. Growing up in the competitive town I lived in, this kind of stuff would happen in Recreational League sports more than it would happen in the High School leagues. There is a difference between playing to win and playing without class.

There have been many times where I was reffing a middle school rec soccer game and a team was up 4 or 5-0, and the winning coach would be getting all his players excited by putting down the other team. I would hear the remarks, and I would not even know how to react. Out on the field is a bunch of 12 year olds learning the game of soccer and trying to have a good time, and the winning coach is openly mocking the team. In my town though, this was far from a rare occasion. There was an article from Rick Reilly a year or two ago that told a story of a little game in which the team that was winning had a choice to make. They could either pitch to the losing teams best player in the bottom of the last inning with two outs, or they could walk this batter to get to the worst hitter on the team, a 9 year old, scrawny, cancer survivor. They chose to walk the best hitter, the scrawny kid struck out, and the coach with absolutely no morals won.

With High School sports though, it's different. When you enter the realm of High School Teams, or even travel teams, there is a commitment that is made by the player. That player knows what they are getting into, and they plan on working their hardest to win. High school sports make cuts, take the best, and do whatever they need to do to win. It's not like Covenant as been a powerhouse for the past few years and has always dominated basketball, just four years earlier they lost a game 82-6. When you're coaching High School sports or above, you have your team playing their hardest to win. In this situation, the coach is working hard to win, and getting his girls a chance to play.

However, Dallas Academy did have its disadvantages. The school only has 20 girls to begin with, and 8 of them are on the basketball team. It's hard to say that those girls are the real deal, especially since they have not won a game in four years, but they are on the team to play hard and it takes a lot to play on that team every day when you know you have not won a game in four years. Also, the school focuses on helping students with short attention spans and dyslexia, but more and more teens have those same problems no matter what high school you go to.

While it may be a little classless to score 100 points in a game on one team, what is really impressive is that the Convent School held Dallas Academy to 0 point: not one basket. That is an incredibly defeat that I have only seen a few times before reffing 4th grade girls games, but the opposing team usually scores around 4 points. For any high school sports basketball team to hold a team to 0 points is an extreme feat that deserves recognition. Should the coach be fired? No. He was playing to win, as were his girls, and they were victorious.