I'm sure if you've been to Multiple Mentality lately, you know that I've basically had to give up blogging for my new job. However, sometimes something comes along so despicable that you just have to write about it.
The football committee of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the state board that governs high school sports, has adopted a "score management" policy to keep teams from winning by more than 50 points.The rout is considered an unsportsmanlike infraction and, beginning this fall, the head coach of the offending team will be disqualified from coaching the next game, said Tony Mosa, assistant executive director of the Cheshire-based CIAC.
"We were concerned with any coach running up the game. There's no need for it," Mosa said Wednesday. "This is something that we really have been discussing for the last couple of years. There were a number of games that were played where the difference of scores were 60 points or more. It's not focused on any one particular person."
So, basically, sportsmanship is more important than skill? Reminds me of Color War back in Summer Camp, where you got more points for sportsmanship than for winning.
Good sportsmanship is all well and good, but restricting your team from being all they can be? Asinine. Were I a HS coach in Connecticut, I would purposefully run up the score just to get in the news and say "this is ridiculous!" for the reason I just noted.
And, of course, the required pablum at the end:
Williams, now a middle school principal in New Haven, formerly coached high school in the city and remembers well the beatings his teams were handed. He recalls being down by 54 points in one game and having the opposing team line up for an onside kick after scoring."Try to explain that to kids," Williams said. "When you get someone down, you don't have to kick them. The key thing to remember is, it's about the quality of the game. It's about teaching kids right from wrong. It's about the game of life and that's how we had to look about it."
Okay, the onside kick was bad sportsmanship. But losing by 54 points? That's not the fault of the other offense, it's the fault of your defense.
It is patently unfair to ask another team not to play up to its highest standards just because you don't want their opponents to feel bad. It's even more unfair than losing by more than 50 points.
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