Sportsmanship in Inaction

ESPN reported a Dallas Girls High School basketball game ended with a score of 100-0. With a lead of 59-0 at the half, the coach of the offending high school kept pressing the other team until the score hit the century mark.

This is the opposite of the Rick Reilly story from ESPN the Magazine.

When I worked at Lamar Community College in rural southeast Colorado, I did PA work for the athletic department. While I was there, the baseball team was good--very good. One day they played a club team (not varsity-even JUCO varsity) from Arapahoe Community College.

JUCO baseball has a mercy rule, 7 runs after 5 1/2 innings if I remember properly. Anyway, the game got that far out of hand in the second inning. Finally, the coach gave his batters a directive, swing at everything. If you got a hit, leg it out. If you strike out, so it goes. But swing--or everyone will be running until the cows came home.

It ended thirty-some to nothing. It was the dullest game I ever called from the press box. I wonder how boring a 100-0 basketball game is--where's "the human drama of athletic competition" in that?

Here's to the team who got shelled--you stuck it out when poor sports--the team wearing the other uni's--tried to stick it to you. You may not have won--but they're the losers.