Punishing excellence
Just when you think you've heard every brain-dead idea that could possibly conceived, along comes the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference with a new rule that if a high school football team wins by 50 points or more, the team's coach will be suspended for the school's next game.
Apparently we can't be cwushing widdle egos by allowing them to be humiliated by a superior team. The better team is now punished for its excellence by a rule that requires them to - to what? Tell the third-stringer who never gets in that he can't play as hard as he can for the only 10-15 minutes he might get on the field this year? Tell the defense to let the weaker team score (and how humiliating is that to the weaker team?)? Tell the quarterback to take a knee on every snap in the second half?
Jersey coaches asked to react pointed out all of the obvious flaws that apparently never occurred to anyone on Connecticut rules committee.
"Everyone wants to blame someone rather than look from within," said Rutherford coach Frank Costa, whose 1-9 team lost games by 55, 47 and 42 points last season. "Whatever happened to buckling up the chin strap and playing, and if you lose by 50 or more than you have to say to yourself, 'We have to get better.' If their second or third team is better than your starters, is he supposed to tell them not to score? ...
Rich Hansen, coach at St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City, whose non-public Group 4 state championship team routinely whips the competition in the HCIAA, said it's not always easy being on the winning side of a blowout either.
"I feel for guys whose programs are struggling. They are coaching hard and it is a difficult position to be in for both sides," said Hansen, The Star-Ledger's 2005 State Coach of the Year. ... "A 50-point win can be done with all the sportsmanship of a 21-14 game or it can be done with bad intentions. If there is a coach that does that and it is widely known, it is incumbent on the school and athletic director to restrain that coach and construct his coaching guidelines so that doesn't happen."
In Connecticut, the local school officials who should discipline their run-up-the-score coach are now relieved of that unpleasant duty - as soon as his team wins 56-3, the state will discipline him for them. As one coach told the New Haven Register, "It's the most asinine, insane thing I've ever heard of in my life."
Apparently we can't be cwushing widdle egos by allowing them to be humiliated by a superior team. The better team is now punished for its excellence by a rule that requires them to - to what? Tell the third-stringer who never gets in that he can't play as hard as he can for the only 10-15 minutes he might get on the field this year? Tell the defense to let the weaker team score (and how humiliating is that to the weaker team?)? Tell the quarterback to take a knee on every snap in the second half?
Jersey coaches asked to react pointed out all of the obvious flaws that apparently never occurred to anyone on Connecticut rules committee.
"Everyone wants to blame someone rather than look from within," said Rutherford coach Frank Costa, whose 1-9 team lost games by 55, 47 and 42 points last season. "Whatever happened to buckling up the chin strap and playing, and if you lose by 50 or more than you have to say to yourself, 'We have to get better.' If their second or third team is better than your starters, is he supposed to tell them not to score? ...
Rich Hansen, coach at St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City, whose non-public Group 4 state championship team routinely whips the competition in the HCIAA, said it's not always easy being on the winning side of a blowout either.
"I feel for guys whose programs are struggling. They are coaching hard and it is a difficult position to be in for both sides," said Hansen, The Star-Ledger's 2005 State Coach of the Year. ... "A 50-point win can be done with all the sportsmanship of a 21-14 game or it can be done with bad intentions. If there is a coach that does that and it is widely known, it is incumbent on the school and athletic director to restrain that coach and construct his coaching guidelines so that doesn't happen."
In Connecticut, the local school officials who should discipline their run-up-the-score coach are now relieved of that unpleasant duty - as soon as his team wins 56-3, the state will discipline him for them. As one coach told the New Haven Register, "It's the most asinine, insane thing I've ever heard of in my life."
posted by B.W. Richardson at
9:52 PM
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