My alma mater once lost a football game by a score of 70-6 (I can’t recall the exact score, but I’ve got the basic proportion right). In some sports, not scoring at all is understandable; soccer is notorious for this. In the case of this notorious football game, getting clobbered on such a level is acceptable. We had been playing a rival that was our equal. But in some cases, running up the score is a touch dishonorable.
Case in point: the Covenant School vs. the Dallas Academy. The Covenant School is a small Catholic high school for ordinary students; the Dallas Academy is a school for learning disabled students. This hardly seems a fair match up. When the Covenant beat Dallas 100-0, a clearly embarassed Covenant fired their coach. Sandefur calls it perverse; I’m afraid I can’t see why he thinks that. It’s one thing, as my alma mater did, to lose badly to an equal. It’s something else when normal people wallop the disabled.
I’m sure that the Covenant coach is right that his girls have worked hard. But would it have been so hard for them to let disabled kids score a few baskets?
Posted by Hubbard in Excruciatingly Correct Behavior