[gwnn]

barmar, on 2015-January-28, 15:02, said:

It may not be as obvious that they're doing this, so it's not as humiliating.

Benchwarmers don't get much chance to play in games. Putting them in against weaker competition is a way to give them some experience outside of just practices.

The benchwarmers were put in after the second quarter, and instructed to play it cool. Has everyone finally understood this? The match could have ended 250-2 as far as I can tell.

[diana_eva]

Here's a more detailed view of what the coach could have done:

Quote

Arroyo Valley entered the week ranked No. 3 in the state in scoring, according to Maxpreps.com. The No.1 team, San Bernardino Cajon, and its coach, Mark Lehman, have faced similar scrutiny in the past for posting large blowouts. Lehman said, following his team's 66-50 victory over Redlands East Valley on Thursday, that the key to showing intent is how a team plays defense in that situation.

http://www.pe.com/ar...ame-valley.html

And also they probably shouldn't have done this:

This post has been edited by diana_eva: 2015-January-28, 20:46

[blackshoe]

mike777, on 2015-January-28, 17:04, said:

WEll ok not the head but I don't see you exempt any other body parts so I assume the rest is ok?

Your assumptions are your problem, not mine.

[Trinidad]

diana_eva, on 2015-January-28, 20:43, said:

And also they probably shouldn't have done this:

I fully agree with that. I also wrote earlier that I have a problem with the coach's statement: "I didn't know they were that bad.". Those are signs of poor bad sportsmanship. But the score by itself is not.

So, I could easily imagine that the suspension was entirely justified... but not because of the score.

Rik

[gwnn]

The coach said that he purposefully did not report the score to any newspapers or websites. It seems that it was someone down the line somewhere who had access to the Facebook account who posted that image, not "the team." I see how it's not a nice thing to do from "the team" but it's just a Facebook post after all and it does not make fun of the opponents, only maybe some critics of the team.

[diana_eva]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-29, 02:12, said:

I fully agree with that. I also wrote earlier that I have a problem with the coach's statement: "I didn't know they were that bad.". Those are signs of poor bad sportsmanship. But the score by itself is not.

So, I could easily imagine that the suspension was entirely justified... but not because of the score.

Rik

Yep. Dunno why the discussion became about the score. Because some online articles said so? I think he was suspended for unsporting behaviour. The score was just one reflection of his bad approach to the game, but not the reason all by itself IMO. The facebook photo further proves that his team isn't taught that blitzing weaker opps by such a margin is not something to be proud of. Doesn't matter who posted the photo, if they can't see why it's not appropriate, there's a problem with attitude at team level.

[kenberg]

I also noted the "I didn't know they were that bad.". At the very least this is tactless. Also, ten minutes into the game, it must have been clear enough to everyone that one team totally dominant, and really that even that is an understatement., There is no way to disguise this, or get around this, but the guy could at least shut up.

Values come into play here. We all value talent, and athletic competition can nurture both talent and appreciation for talent. But we also value tact and generosity and it is reasonable to explain this fact to a coach if for some reason he doesn't know it.

So yes. The players were required to finish the game one way or another, nothing could be done about that, but the gratuitous insult was his own idea.

[gwnn]

diana_eva said:

The facebook photo further proves that his team isn't taught that blitzing weaker opps by such a margin is not something to be proud of.

It's a strange situation. If you say "my granddaughter has a GPA of 4.0! Proud of her!" and post a picture with the GPA of everyone in her class, the second placed one having 3.2, it's completely fine. But if you only have two contestants, having a large advantage over your opponents is something you cannot be proud of. I submit there is no logical reason why this is so, but I also feel that it's not the same thing. My guess is that our brains are wired to appreciate one-on-one situations as a combat situation.

[diana_eva]

I just thought it would be like posting a message along the lines of "JEC vs BIL Friendly Combat ended 456-2. Talent and hard work well rewarded because you know... JEC! Yay!!!" Nobody I know would ever think of doing such a thing, not because they would be afraid of humiliating the weaker team, but simply because it's not something to post as a triumph. It's the result of an obvious mismatch.

Even if the stronger team made their best efforts to not completely dominate the match, even if they played with their shoe laces tied together and jumping in one foot, it still would feel weird to post the score as a proof of talent and hard work.

[ArtK78]

The fact is that there are many strong scholastic teams and many weak scholastic teams. For some reason, the difference in skill levels is more pronounced in women's basketball than in men's basketball (probably because some women who may play for a scholastic team are there just to fill out the team and have virtually no basketball playing experience, while traditionally more men have been playing basketball for years, so it is easier to find men with basketball playing experience than to find women with the equivalent level of experience, much less expertise). This is true even at the college level. Take a look at the early round games in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, especially the matchups between the top teams and the lower seeds. You will often see scores of 85-28 and the like. And this is supposedly the top 64 teams in the country!

Some small schools put a team into interscholastic play that really has no business playing against larger schools. It amounts to, as Diana puts it, JEC vs. BIL. In such a matchup, even when the difference in skill level becomes obvious, the JEC team is still going to crush the BIL team without trying too hard. That is true in the basketball game as well. And the basketball team has an advantage over the JEC team - the basketball team knows the score! But at some point the power team should just not play like it would in a closely contested game against an equal rival. And, certainly, the coach of the strong team should be careful how he speaks publicly about the mismatch.

[barmar]

gwnn, on 2015-January-29, 08:11, said:

It's a strange situation. If you say "my granddaughter has a GPA of 4.0! Proud of her!" and post a picture with the GPA of everyone in her class, the second placed one having 3.2, it's completely fine. But if you only have two contestants, having a large advantage over your opponents is something you cannot be proud of. I submit there is no logical reason why this is so, but I also feel that it's not the same thing. My guess is that our brains are wired to appreciate one-on-one situations as a combat situation.

Posting "My granddaughter has a GPA of 4.0" is considered OK, but adding "So-and-so only had 3.2" would not be. It's OK to be proud of your children, but putting down others because they don't meet the same expectations is boorish.

Also, it's considered OK to boast about your children/grandchildren, but boasting about yourself is gloating.

[gwnn]

barmar, on 2015-January-29, 09:42, said:

Posting "My granddaughter has a GPA of 4.0" is considered OK, but adding "So-and-so only had 3.2" would not be. It's OK to be proud of your children, but putting down others because they don't meet the same expectations is boorish.

My example was not "So-and-so only had 3.2." It was posting the list of the whole class, or at least some of the top people to give some perspective (or just because that's the picture that you have). If you think that's weird, how about posting the final standings in bridge?

grandson-his p 67.5%
A-B 58.7%
C-D 56.3%
E-F 56.1%
etc

I don't think I am putting down A-B or anyone else per se, just giving a sense of how good the winners were compared to the field (for people who don't know bridge, 67% sounds like a crappy score when in fact it's a great one).

Quote

Also, it's considered OK to boast about your children/grandchildren, but boasting about yourself is gloating.

Of course. I was just concentrating on the 2 contestants vs many contestants element and was trying not to get distracted by who posts it. But by all means, we can get into that as well. I think this case is a bit off because chances are it was not one of the players who posted the result on the facebook page, but some kind of a secretary. The line is getting blurry now. The secretary can be legitimately proud of what the girls have done without gloating in the simplest sense. Then again, he/she is also a part of the team in some way. I don't know.

[quiddity]

gwnn, on 2015-January-29, 09:55, said:

Of course. I was just concentrating on the 2 contestants vs many contestants element and was trying not to get distracted by who posts it.

Yeah, there is no similar etiquette issue in golf for example, where each individual is trying for the best possible score.
Also, there tends to be no similar etiquette issue in sports with a point target like tennis, volleyball, etc. You can beat someone 6-0 6-0 as quickly as you want, no problem.

[onoway]

MrAce, on 2015-January-28, 17:33, said:

And he was under the impression that you are capable of knowing the difference between a team/coach who are doing their best to win in a basketball game against the other kids of same age, sex, country and state, with same ball, same tennis shoes and probably have access to everything that winning team had, and soldiers who are killing kids who already surrendered, on the order of their commanding officer.

I could sit down and write pages of what I think about some soldiers who had done awful things under the excuse of " I was following orders" and also what I think about the people who point fingers at them, while as society they pretend like they had no idea what their military or the system that they created, is capable of. One of them do awful things under the pressure, fearing about their lives, psychologically and emotionally weakened, and tied by the rules and brain washed that they are doing things for better future or bigger picture. And those soldiers can hurt only so many other human beings while the system supported by finger pointers, in the long run, impacts massive number of humans, everyday, every hour every second. Yet they pop up like may flowers, in a bar conversation or a bridge forum or w/e, and give lectures about "fairness" and "values" thinking that they can patch their consciousness. Now and then they may even suspend a coach too, because only a very tiny taste of ***** that they created happened right in front of their eyes and it felt just soooooo wrong!

Of course there is no comparison between this situation and the horrific things that have been done with that excuse, any more than there is an equal comparison between a 12 year old boy who frequently enjoys pulling wings off live flies and someone who kills and dismembers people.

The point I was semi seriously trying to make, though, is that there is a continuum, imo. Adults either take responsibility for whatever they do, on one end of the continuum, or it's always "someone else's " fault when things turn out badly on the other. It seems to me that we have gone way way too far in the direction of it's always "someone or something else's" responsibility. Such things as holding a cocktail waitress responsible for a driver who gets drunk and in an accident is to my mind outrageous.

I believe that an adult takes responsibility for his or her own actions, and that means dealing with the consequences of those actions, whether it's giving the finger to someone who just swiped that parking space you've been waiting for or waterboarding people in Guantanamo Bay. Or going ahead with a farcical mismatch of teenage sports teams which can have no positive result for anyone beyond perhaps, the coach...and as it turned out not for him either.

When society allows the shifting of responsibility for an event from the person who "did" whatever, to some outside force for small things," she shoplifts because her toilet training was too severe " and then bigger things, "he beats up homeless people because he comes from a poor background" , nobody should be surprised when kids grow up to have little concept of responsibility or consequences. They aren't taught as kids, they have no way to deal with situations which conflict with what they think to be ethical or right when confronted with them as adults, except to do as they are pressured to do and hope. Still, if not holding an adult responsible for what they do, then when - if ever- DO you hold someone accountable?

[barmar]

onoway, on 2015-January-30, 10:32, said:

I believe that an adult takes responsibility for his or her own actions, and that means dealing with the consequences of those actions, whether it's giving the finger to someone who just swiped that parking space you've been waiting for or waterboarding people in Guantanamo Bay. Or going ahead with a farcical mismatch of teenage sports teams which can have no positive result for anyone beyond perhaps, the coach...and as it turned out not for him either.

I think this greatly oversimplifies things.

Sometimes you have to give up responsibility, because you can't be expected to have all the facts. If you're a soldier, you generally do your job, because you assume that the leaders who gave the orders had good reasons for them. It's the nature of the beast that war requires doing things that would be considered totally unacceptable in other contexts. And it would be infeasible to try to engage in battle if you had to allow for each soldier's moral decisions about which actions are right or wrong. Only under the most extreme circumstances would it be acceptable for a soldier to question the propriety of the orders they're given.

But a ball game is not a war, even though war-related metaphors are often used to discuss them. You can't use the same ethical rules for both.

[diana_eva]

IMO these "kids" are much closer to young adults than small kids exempt of responsibility for what's happening to them. There is responsibility of adults involved in the case of the mismatch but not necessarily because they allowed for the mismatch to happen. I don't think the kids cannot handle the "trauma", they can very well survive with no emotional consequences at this age if the game is played in a sporting manner.

As Trinidad said many times, and I fully agree with him, it doesn't matter what the score is, it matters how the game is played. Had the match switched to practice mode early on, had the stronger team's coach refrained from making insulting statements such as "I didn't know they were that bad", had he not taught his team that a big score shows talent and hard work no matter the circumstances, none of this controversy would have happened.

I'd blame the strong team's coach for not teaching his team proper ethics. The purpose of the athletic program seems to be to teach kids sportsmanship, and he wasn't doing that. That's where an adult should be held responsible, and he was.

[gwnn]

You are jumping to a lot of conclusions there Diana to accuse the coach of things he did not necessarily do.

He didn't just come and say "I didn't know you were that bad LOL!" He said that in an answer to a question. It was quite possibly the truth - what can he say when they ask him "why didn't you stop your team from scoring those 162 points?" try to phrase a proper answer to that without sounding either rude, condescending, or both. I have no idea how to do it to be honest. You could say something like "I made a big mistake, I'm sorry, I'm the worst person in the world, our opponents deserve our heartfelt apology for playing our best instead of protecting their dignity actively" - I guess that's the best I can think about, but it does not really answer the question. He could have said something like "Well, in the beginning it was unclear to me that the gulf between us will be so vast, and when I tried to remedy this by telling my team to wait out the shot clock and I put in the second team, it was already too late. I think I reacted too late and I am sorry about that." - but this is basically what he said, except with less tact. Fair enough but it's not like he's a monster for just saying it more simply and bluntly.

Also, we have no idea what he had taught his team. All we know someone published the result on the Facebook page. We also know that the coach was ashamed to report the score to the local newspaper or online. So it was probably not the coach who posted it on the Facebook page, but worst case scenario, one of the players, but how do you know that she did it because of what she learned from the coach? These players are like 16-18 years old, they have their own personalities and attitudes, they are not just the direct consequence of their surroundings, let alone their basketball coach.

[diana_eva]

gwnn, on 2015-January-30, 12:33, said:

You are jumping to a lot of conclusions there Diana to accuse the coach of things he did not necessarily do.

He didn't just come and say "I didn't know you were that bad LOL!" He said that in an answer to a question. It was quite possibly the truth - what can he say when they ask him "why didn't you stop your team from scoring those 162 points?" try to phrase a proper answer to that without sounding either rude, condescending, or both. I have no idea how to do it to be honest. You could say something like "I made a big mistake, I'm sorry, I'm the worst person in the world, our opponents deserve our heartfelt apology for playing our best instead of protecting their dignity actively" - I guess that's the best I can think about, but it does not really answer the question. He could have said something like "Well, in the beginning it was unclear to me that the gulf between us will be so vast, and when I tried to remedy this by telling my team to wait out the shot clock and I put in the second team, it was already too late. I think I reacted too late and I am sorry about that." - but this is basically what he said, except with less tact. Fair enough but it's not like he's a monster for just saying it more simply and bluntly.

Also, we have no idea what he had taught his team. All we know someone published the result on the Facebook page. We also know that the coach was ashamed to report the score to the local newspaper or online. So it was probably not the coach who posted it on the Facebook page, but worst case scenario, one of the players, but how do you know that she did it because of what she learned from the coach? These players are like 16-18 years old, they have their own personalities and attitudes, they are not just the direct consequence of their surroundings, let alone their basketball coach.

Maybe I worded that too strongly. But after at first I was tempted to think gee, this guy was put in a really tough situation, I read that there were other coaches in that situation before, that mismatches weren't all that uncommon, and that other people were able to identify and deal with a mismatch way earlier. Basically, after being willing to cut him some slack, more and more it felt like he was just BS-ing and he saw what was going on but didn't care.

I admit it's just my own impression, I don't know anything about basketball, esp in USA

[kenberg]

This thread has a longer life span than I would have expected!

For those (almost everyone) who follow these things more than I do:

Is this extrem mis-match common? in high school our football team was not very good. But they never lost 100-0 os 100-3 or anything like that. Maybe 20-3 or even 27-0. But not 100-0. I think it is different. If you are ahead 20-0 everyone has seen comebacks. If you are ahead 27-0 half way through the fourth quarter, ok maybe you send in the second team for some practice. And as I recal that was the reason. It was an opportunity to for the less talented kids to play. I did to pay as much attention to basketball, in the 1950s most people didn't, but I think it was comparable.

today there are far, far more leagues than when i was young. And the leagues are pitched at players of various abilities and seriousness. If most of the teams in the league are comparable to teh team was on the 150 end of the score then I would expect the girls that were playing on the 2 end of the score (numbers approximate) to play in a different league. If the team with the 150 score is just miles and miles better than anyone else, I would expect them to welcome stiffer competition on another place.


So I ask: Is this very very extreme mismatch common in adolescent sports? I mean not just better, not just a lot better, but just way out whack? I don't recall it from my youth and I would not have expected it today.

[quiddity]

If I'm ever accused of a crime I'd like Csaba on my jury please.