Running Up The Score: Good or Bad?
Also from today's edition of Best of the Web (last item) is a short recap of a story that has received a fair amount of attention in the American sports press lately, about a girls' basketball game that ended with a 100-0 score. Here are some background facts, aside from the score:
1. The losing team hasn't won a game in four years.
2. The winning team was a Christian school. (Not sure about the losing team.)
3. The winning school's administrators apologized afterwards for running up the score, though it was acknowledged by many that this was only so up to a point; that once they reached 100 points with about 4 minutes to play, they stopped trying to score. (Despite this, the losing team was praised, absurdly, for "limiting" the winning team to 12 points in the fourth quarter.) Going further still, they offered (maybe successfully) to forfeit the game.
4. The winning coach refused to apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity." He was fired the same day.
In some kids' sport leagues, there are "mercy" rules to speed or end blowouts when they reached the point of competitive absurdity, but apparently none existed here. So what should have happened here? Were the winners (Covenant School) supposed to pretend it was no longer an intrinsically competitive event? And should the coach have been fired for unapologetically running up the score (at least as far as he did)?
My view, which might not make everyone happy (though I suspect from comments on earlier posts that it will find a fair amount of agreement), is that the winners were justified and the coach shouldn't have been fired. Here are some considerations on their behalf:
1. The nature of sport is to compete, to do one's best and to strive for victory. One can do it with grace, with class, with honor and so on, but once one stops trying to achieve the sport or game's aims, one violates the nature of competition.
2. It's the losing team's (Dallas Academy's) job not to embarrass itself, not the opponent's. There's a sort of hypocrisy at play here. If they don't like the results they're getting, they should stop competing (at least against in a league where they're winless for 4 years). If the response is that they're in it for the joy and benefits of competing, then compete and live with the results!
3. If the score shouldn't be important to the winning side, why should the losing side care? Either it's irrelevant, in which case the winners shouldn't be criticized, or it does, in which case the winners still shouldn't be criticized - except for not running it up further.
4. If the winning team "calls off the dogs" (i.e. stops trying), then they're going to foster bad physical and psychological habits rather than good ones.
What about mercy and other such virtues, especially for a Christian school? I'm not sure I see the connection. Getting beat in a sport or game isn't like being beaten in real life (unless it's boxing or the like!); it's a voluntarily undertaken activity with no real damage done. And what's the threshold supposed to be? Is it "Christian" to win by 10 points, but not by 20? (In a chess game, should I refuse a resignation in under 15 moves, or stop capturing free pieces at a certain point?)
Another possible response: aren't there greater things than competition? Shouldn't they be taken into account? Sure, but what are the relevant things? The winners could offer to help the losers think about how to improve, could be encouraging and engage in other acts of kindness. But while it might have been a nice gesture to stop at 88-0 or 99-0, this doesn't strike me as something they ought to have done or that exhibits any special virtue. Let's suppose Covenant really went the extra mile in the last quarter and not only failed to score but played no defense, either. Suppose the game wound up 88-44. Wouldn't that be patronizing and a sort of lie, making it seem to the world and the Dallas players that they're better than they really are? If the Dallas supporters praised their team for "holding" Covenant to 12 points in the last quarter, when it was obvious that Covenant simply decided not to play offense the last four minutes, imagine the cloud castles they'd have constructed in the 88-44 scenario!
I think it's noble that the Dallas Academy girls have the competitive bravery to go out there and fight when their team is really out of its depth. But it's not noble for the Dallas supporters to praise them for their defense when the other team stopped trying, it's not noble for the winning school's administrators to apologize for the margin, and it's not only ignoble but hopefully illegal for them to fire the coach for not caving in on the matter. It's possible that I've exaggerated the case for 100 (or more) to nothing - there are a few points I think I've overstated. But it's nothing compared to Covenant's self-flagellation and their firing their coach.
But perhaps my gentle readers will disagree...
1. The losing team hasn't won a game in four years.
2. The winning team was a Christian school. (Not sure about the losing team.)
3. The winning school's administrators apologized afterwards for running up the score, though it was acknowledged by many that this was only so up to a point; that once they reached 100 points with about 4 minutes to play, they stopped trying to score. (Despite this, the losing team was praised, absurdly, for "limiting" the winning team to 12 points in the fourth quarter.) Going further still, they offered (maybe successfully) to forfeit the game.
4. The winning coach refused to apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity." He was fired the same day.
In some kids' sport leagues, there are "mercy" rules to speed or end blowouts when they reached the point of competitive absurdity, but apparently none existed here. So what should have happened here? Were the winners (Covenant School) supposed to pretend it was no longer an intrinsically competitive event? And should the coach have been fired for unapologetically running up the score (at least as far as he did)?
My view, which might not make everyone happy (though I suspect from comments on earlier posts that it will find a fair amount of agreement), is that the winners were justified and the coach shouldn't have been fired. Here are some considerations on their behalf:
1. The nature of sport is to compete, to do one's best and to strive for victory. One can do it with grace, with class, with honor and so on, but once one stops trying to achieve the sport or game's aims, one violates the nature of competition.
2. It's the losing team's (Dallas Academy's) job not to embarrass itself, not the opponent's. There's a sort of hypocrisy at play here. If they don't like the results they're getting, they should stop competing (at least against in a league where they're winless for 4 years). If the response is that they're in it for the joy and benefits of competing, then compete and live with the results!
3. If the score shouldn't be important to the winning side, why should the losing side care? Either it's irrelevant, in which case the winners shouldn't be criticized, or it does, in which case the winners still shouldn't be criticized - except for not running it up further.
4. If the winning team "calls off the dogs" (i.e. stops trying), then they're going to foster bad physical and psychological habits rather than good ones.
What about mercy and other such virtues, especially for a Christian school? I'm not sure I see the connection. Getting beat in a sport or game isn't like being beaten in real life (unless it's boxing or the like!); it's a voluntarily undertaken activity with no real damage done. And what's the threshold supposed to be? Is it "Christian" to win by 10 points, but not by 20? (In a chess game, should I refuse a resignation in under 15 moves, or stop capturing free pieces at a certain point?)
Another possible response: aren't there greater things than competition? Shouldn't they be taken into account? Sure, but what are the relevant things? The winners could offer to help the losers think about how to improve, could be encouraging and engage in other acts of kindness. But while it might have been a nice gesture to stop at 88-0 or 99-0, this doesn't strike me as something they ought to have done or that exhibits any special virtue. Let's suppose Covenant really went the extra mile in the last quarter and not only failed to score but played no defense, either. Suppose the game wound up 88-44. Wouldn't that be patronizing and a sort of lie, making it seem to the world and the Dallas players that they're better than they really are? If the Dallas supporters praised their team for "holding" Covenant to 12 points in the last quarter, when it was obvious that Covenant simply decided not to play offense the last four minutes, imagine the cloud castles they'd have constructed in the 88-44 scenario!
I think it's noble that the Dallas Academy girls have the competitive bravery to go out there and fight when their team is really out of its depth. But it's not noble for the Dallas supporters to praise them for their defense when the other team stopped trying, it's not noble for the winning school's administrators to apologize for the margin, and it's not only ignoble but hopefully illegal for them to fire the coach for not caving in on the matter. It's possible that I've exaggerated the case for 100 (or more) to nothing - there are a few points I think I've overstated. But it's nothing compared to Covenant's self-flagellation and their firing their coach.
But perhaps my gentle readers will disagree...