As happens once in a while, a score in a high school athletic contest is making the rounds as the current thing we should all say is just "poor sportsmanship," and shake our heads about, etc. Well, bullsh-t, I say. That's just stupid. The fact that Convenant School is now asking to forfeit their 100-0 win over Dallas Academy is just ridiculous. Why even keep score? Why even have a team? If you're going to have to apologize for pummelling your opponents, then don't even effing play.
If you didn't yet hear about this (lucky you), Covenant pounded Dallas Academy -- a school that hasn't won a game in four years, mind you -- by 100 and then backed off. Should they have been pressing and keeping on the pressure into the fourth quarter? Well, maybe not. I suppose there's an "honor" in being reasonable to your opponents. And the school's chairman described the win as "victory without honor," "shameful" and an "embarrassment."
However, if Dallas Academy wants to field a team and Convenant is in your district, then, well, guess what? You need to take your medicine or else disband your basketball program. Sorry, that's the way the cookie crumbles. At least it used to be.
I remember playing on a traveling team of what were loosely described as "All-Stars" from my town (I say loosely because, hey, I was on the team). We played other towns all-star squads, many of which were, let's just say, a bit better than we were. I distinctly recall a road game in which we had a total of two points after three quarters. TWO! We were down something like 50-2. I don't remember the final but it was something like 66-8 or something like that. And I don't remember ever a word being uttered about it being "wrong" that we got shellacked like that. We got run out of the gym, plain and simple. And we lost. And then we went home. And on Monday we went back to school. And life went on.
Convenant also won games this year by scores of 66-7 and 77-27. Why haven't they forfeited those games? Is winning by 50 honorable but winning by 100 is not? Where is the line? I'm just curious.
I just don't agree with all this apologizing and the ludicrous notion of forfeiting the game to the lousy team. It is what's wrong with athletics right now. These are high school girls -- they're not 8-year-olds. The next level is college. And do you know what happens in college? Sometimes you don't succeed -- and I'm not even talking about basketball. Sometimes you get your ass kicked by a biology midterm. And if you get a zero on it and look pathetic doing so, your professor isn't going to decide that you should actually get 100 because failing you wasn't "honorable."
This whole story is so idiotic and it makes me angry.