Jordan Brewer Article 3
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/texas/article/Have-mercy-Not-in-Texas-high-school-football-4923402.php
Level: State level
Category: High school football
This article concerns: anyone that plays high-school football and all the parents that complain about their teams getting beat 91-0 apparently.
How does this affect families or individuals?
From a negative standpoint not calling for a mercy rule of say 50 points it could destroy the morale of a young athlete and make them not want to play sports anymore and even affect them later on in life.
My opinion on the subject:
I personally have been on either end of these beatings and I can tell you it is definitely not fun being on the losing side of a score like 91 to 0. That being said I do not think the coaches of the winning team should be punished. If it was wrong for a team to beat there opponent by so much then clearly we need to implement a mercy rule. The problem with mercy rules is comebacks do happen, even by as much as 30 or 40 points in both basketball and football. Having that mercy rule takes away from the opportunity of a comeback but at the same time prevents things like this happening to a far less superior team that does often times destroy players morale and makes them quit. I have been an athlete all my life so I can relate to this article and I think the parents calling the the coaches actions "unlawful" is a tad bit excessive. Running up the score on a team is wrong but at the same time not playing to your fullest abilities could be seen as wrong as well just to avoid running the score up. I think everyone needs to learn how to lose at sports growing up because it helps build competitiveness in the long-run and helps build team work because getting beat is the best way to bring a team together.
I personally think there is nothing wrong with a mercy rule. If a team is getting beat by 50+ points by the half or later, it is very unlikely that they will be able to come back from that. That having been said, since there is not a mercy rule in place, I do not see anything wrong with what the coach of the winning team did. The father that made the bullying complaint said the coach did not ease up when he should have, but the winning Aledo coach was the one that suggested keeping the clock running to end the game quicker and he also pulled all of his starters out of the game for the second half. At that point, what else could he do short of simply handing the other team the ball? All of the focus is on what the winning coach did wrong but nobody seems to question why the losing coach did nothing to end the game. I feel that if he sees his team completely out matched, it is in the best interest of his team, for the players' safety, to forfeit the game and let it be done with. If you get blown out all the way to the end of a game or if you get beat so bad that they call the game early, it is pretty humiliating either way. It should be looked at by the losing coach to either teach his team how to lose with class and bow out, or to keep fighting to the very end regardless of the outcome. When I was in high school, I went to a very small 3A school that eventually dropped down to 2A. Our girls' basketball team was still one of the best in the nation even given how small we were, and our non-district games were often played against much larger 5A schools. One game that I attended, our girls team was beating the much larger 5A team by over 60 points. The coach told his team not to score over 100 points, and by the end of the game they were just practicing new plays. The score eventually reached 98 to 30-something, and it turned into one of the most boring and sad games you could imagine. The girls basically just passed the ball around until it was turned over in some way. For the losing team, it was pretty embarrassing, but they all knew they had nobody to blame. They kept trying to close up the gap and lost the game with class. Sometimes you are simply out matched, but it is no reason to go getting upset at the better team. I think the bullying claim made on the Aledo coach just shows a complete lack of class from the father, and it is a shame that he can't teach his son good sportsmanship.
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