Girls HS Basketball Game Final Score: 108-3

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I just bumped into my 13 year old neighbor at the variety store. 

I asked her if she decided to quit the team or stay with it.  She said that I caught her at a bad moment the other night and that she isn't a quitter.  I told her that I was glad.  She also said that she was no longer mad at the other team and that she understood they were trying to be nice not jerks.

I told her I had been discussing the issue of blowouts in youth and high school sports with friends and minded if I asked her opinion on a few things.   She was like sure no problem.

I asked her what she thought of a mercy rule.  She said that would suck because all the games her team played would end super early.  And it would be even more embarrassing to be told we sucked so bad they were ending the game than to have the game continue. 

I asked, "I guess if you say sucked worse, that means you aren't real happy with the current situation?"  "No, shit Sherlock, how would you feel getting blown out every game? And playing against people 10 times better than you?" 

So I asked her what she thought ought be done.  Her response was:

"Let us play other teams that also suck.  Of all our games, only one team doesn't also have a JV squad and only a few don't also have a freshman squad.  That one other team which is next week, should be a fun game, will probably lose but we will keep it close, we might even win.  And the two scrimmages we had against freshman only teams from the really good schools were fun games too.  We lost, but by only 1 or 2 points each. But we are only allowed to play two scrimmages a year.   I would rather just play that one other not so good team over and over and so would they.  One of the teams is going to get their only win for the year.  I hope it is us, but it will probably be them."   

[Pappy13]

I asked her what she thought of a mercy rule.  She said that would suck because all the games her team played would end super early.  And it would be even more embarrassing to be told we sucked so bad they were ending the game than to have the game continue.

It sucks either way honestly, but at least you don't have teams forced to make a decision about not playing hard or letting the other team score or any of that nonsense.  It's the lesser of 2 evils.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

It sucks either way honestly, but at least you don't have teams forced to make a decision about not playing hard or letting the other team score or any of that nonsense.  It's the lesser of 2 evils.

Not necessarily.  Lets say the mercy rule was up by 35 at the half.  One team is up by 33 with only a min left in the half.  The winning coach doesn't want to embarrass the other team by invoking the mercy rule so tells her team to back off for the final minute of the half.   

BTW she is saying the same thing I am saying.  Let the good teams play other good teams.  Let not so good teams play other not so good teams.  And lets avoid having the elite teams play the really bad teams. 

[Pappy13]

Not necessarily.  Lets say the mercy rule was up by 35 at the half.  One team is up by 33 with only a min left in the half.  The winning coach doesn't want to embarrass the other team by invoking the mercy rule so tells her team to back off for the final minute of the half.

I've never seen this happen in baseball even once and I played in and watched a TON of games when I was a kid.  Baseball was pretty much my life back then.  In fact just the opposite happens, teams are TRYING to get that last 2 points so they can finish you off and get the WIN.  What coach is gonna tell his team to back off and risk possibly letting the other team come back in the 2nd half?  For what?  No, you take the win when you can get it and spare the other team the embarrassment of getting beat 108-3.

BTW she is saying the same thing I am saying.  Let the good teams play other good teams.  Let not so good teams play other not so good teams.  And lets avoid having the elite teams play the really bad teams. 

They also recommend "time out" for kids who misbehave now.  In my day a good spanking did the same job and did it better. Please no child abuse threats, my kids are all healthy and happy today.  Can everyone say that? 

Personally I think part of playing sports is character building.  Learning how to lose is every bit as important as learning how to win.  Sometimes you just gotta take your lumps.  Getting beat is a great motivator to get better.

My daughter Jessica started at goalie all 4 years for her high school soccer team.  No not Hillary, another daughter, I have 3 of them that played soccer.   Anyway her school just happened to be barely over the size limit to be a 5A school, all the other schools in 5A were much bigger in size.  At Plano you HAD to be either a Junior or Senior to play on the varsity team and they had a JV and Freshman team as well, Jessica's school only had a varsity team.  To make a long story short, they whipped us pretty good Jessica's Freshman through Junior years.  Jessica would normally stop about 30 shots and give up 2 or 3 goals and we'd lose 2 or 3 to zero. Her senior year however she shut them out and we tied them 0-0.  You'd have thought we just won State.  For Jessica that WAS the equivalent of winning the state championship.  Playing Plano brought out the best in her even if we never won a game against them.

[StL FinFan]

There is a big difference between losing and getting blown out game after game.  A soccer team I played on just folded because we could not compete and kept getting killed.  It's not fun. 

BTW - never spanked my kids & they are healthy and happy

[CF DolFan]

BTW - never spanked my kids & they are healthy and happy

Yes you just think they are. You need to smack them around to get the best out of them!! 

Hopefully I do not need to post a "joking" disclaimer!! 

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Losing 2-0 or 3-0 is quite a bit different than 108 - 3.

You mentioned your daughters team lost to Plano every year.  That is bit different than losing to every team, every year.  With most games being blowouts.

I bet Jessica would not have been a happy camper if every game had a final score of 11-0 or 12-0 with an occasional close game of 3-0.   

This girl is okay with taking some lumps....she wasn't complaining about losing all the games, she just wanted to play in games where they had a shot. 

[Pappy13]

Losing 2-0 or 3-0 is quite a bit different than 108 - 3.

True, but it is soccer not basketball.  We usually might have 1 shot on goal, so we never really had much of a realistic shot at winning.  Also try telling that to your daughter who is the goalie.  She thought she should have stopped every last goal so to let in 2 or 3 goals, for her was a lot.  She had quite a few shutouts in her high school career.

You mentioned your daughters team lost to Plano every year.  That is bit different than losing to every team, every year.  With most games being blowouts.

Again that's true, but how often does that really occur?  It's not that often.  Certainly not often enough to make what your talking about necessary.  Grouping schools by size works fairly well to keep things fairly even.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes really bad teams are just gonna have to accept the fact that they are really bad or the other teams are really good.

And it wasn't just Plano that we lost to.  We pretty much lost or tied every single game because Jessica would keep us in the game, but Plano was the best team we had to play.

I bet Jessica would not have been a happy camper if every game had a final score of 11-0 or 12-0 with an occasional close game of 3-0.   

This girl is okay with taking some lumps....she wasn't complaining about losing all the games, she just wanted to play in games where they had a shot. 

I understand and I sympathize with her, but that's life, it's not always fair.  Sometimes it's really unfair.  I'm not saying I don't care, I'm just saying that I don't really think that we have to really try to force things to always be fair.  Sometimes unfair is a learning experience. It motivates us to work harder and to overcome the odds.  Some people give up when the going gets tough and some don't, they work harder, they get stronger.  It's not always a bad thing.

Sounds like she also got over it pretty quickly.  She was upset right after it happened, but then she got over it and perhaps she's a stronger person for it.  She learned how to deal with being embarrassed.  That's a good thing.

[masterfins]

And there's the beauty of the mercy rule.  No one has to change the way they are playing.  The team on the winning side can keep playing their best knowing that if they are up by 50 at half-time or 30 at the end of 3 quarters, the game is over.  The team on the losing side can keep playing for pride, hoping to keep it under 50 at half-time or under 30 by 3 quarters.  Just being able to say you forced the other team to play the whole game would become an accomplishment!

I wouldn't have a probablem with the mercy rule idea, but I wouldn't think it would come into play that often, which is why they probably don't have the rule.  The reason for the rule in baseball/softball is that there is no clock, and the game could go on forever.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Sometimes really bad teams are just gonna have to accept the fact that they are really bad or the other teams are really good.

She accepts that her team is really bad and that other teams are really good.  What neither of us understand is why the elite best teams need to play the really bad teams. Let the really good teams play other really good teams.  Let really bad teams play other really bad teams.

Sounds like she also got over it pretty quickly.  She was upset right after it happened, but then she got over it and perhaps she's a stronger person for it.  She learned how to deal with being embarrassed.  That's a good thing.

Not really.  She has gotten to the point that she no longer considers them jerks for letting them score.

She is also resigned to the idea that in all likelihood she will graduate high school having never won a single game and only rarely ever play in game in which they aren't totally blown out.  I don't think it is healthy for a teenager to have to go thru the 2008 Lion's season. 

[bsmooth]

Exactly....one small private school that gives scholarships to athletes gets stuck in the same division as a small private school whose attitude is "academics first, academics last, academics always the sports teams are just a diversion." And you get scores like 108 - 3, without the 108 really trying.   

My solution would solve all that within a couple of years. 

Actually you could solve it by saying any school that uses "scholarships" for sports to recruit talent cannot play any public school, and only other private schools that do the same thing.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Actually you could solve it by saying any school that uses "scholarships" for sports to recruit talent cannot play any public school, and only other private schools that do the same thing.

Except I don't of a single private HS that gives pure sports scholarships, all of them are based on a combination of factors such as academic success, financial need, promoting diversity, character and leadership.  It just a mere coincidence that year after year the poor, inner-city black kids with a C average that made the newspapers "all state all eight grade team" edged others out on the character and leadership qualities at some schools.

And almost every private school has some sort of scholarship program so it would be hard to implement what you suggest.