Winning isn't everything

You perhaps have read about the girls’ basketball team in Texas that beat another team recently 100-0.

It didn’t surprise me to hear of something like that. When I was a sportswriter I had to watch a lot of girls’ basketball games, and let me tell you, it could be tough. I liked girls, and I liked basketball, but I didn’t like girls’ basketball.

Now, this was 20 years ago, and I’m sure that the female side of the game has improved greatly, but I still can’t bring myself to watch. They even have a professional league for women, which I also haven’t watched. I assume the players aren’t as heavily tattooed as they are in the NBA.

I covered one high school game where the final score was 70-4, and believe me, it wasn’t that close. I saw a girl travel, double dribble, pass the ball to herself, commit an offensive foul and throw the ball over the backboard, all on the same play. The poor referee just looked over to the sideline and shrugged.

The coach of the team that won the 100-0 game got fired after he wouldn’t apologize for running up the score. He said he wasn’t trying to embarrass the other team, but he probably was. I’ve seen jackass coaches like that all my life. I questioned a girls’ softball coach once about running up the score, and he told that his girls were racehorses and they couldn’t be held back.

Did I mention they were 10 years old?

When my son was 7, he played on a Pee Wee league football team, and you would not believe how those redneck coaches behaved – yelling, screaming, throwing things, acting like complete fools on the sidelines. Picture Steve Spurrier with much smaller players, and you get the picture.

I remember the last time I coached baseball. It was when my son was 11, and I didn’t plan to coach, but I got guilted into it because apparently they didn’t have enough coaches, and some boys weren’t going to get to play. So they gave me a team of all the leftovers who didn’t get drafted, and it was quite an experience.

There were a few boys on the team who didn’t know a baseball from a canteloupe. My son was a good player, and so were two or three others, but for the most part we were the Bad News Bears without the drinking and cursing.

I assessed this bunch early on and realized we would not be playing for a title, so I decided, what the heck. Every kid gets to play. Every kid gets a chance to pitch or bat leadoff or play shortstop.

I had a parent come offer to help me coach, and it wasn’t long before he was giving me a talking to about what to do, and how I needed to establish a consistent batting order for us to have a chance. I said, are you kidding? There are boys on this team who couldn’t hit a beach ball with a boat paddle. Bobby Cox could fill out the lineup card and it wouldn’t make a difference.

We lost all but one or two games, so I feel for those girls who lost by 100 points, and their parents. It’s just a game. But when a coach feels it’s necessary to beat a team that badly, it’s easy to see who the real loser was.