One problem with this is that in general, we teach children to accomplish as much as they can. We don’t tell them to hold back on the SAT’s to be merciful to children who aren’t as smart or who haven’t had as much schooling. We don’t tell them to hold back accomplishments on their resume to help lower-skilled candidates get closer to the job. We don’t tell them to stop reading so many books because of how bad it makes illiterate people feel when they see our kids walking around with 1000-page tomes.
Analogy fail. No one asked them to throw the game. If the objective was to win, would winning by 40 or 50 have given them a different record? Would a 57 - 15 score have been shameful or something? In this case, good sportsmanship could still have helped them hone certain skills, with the win never in doubt. Dial back your SATs and maybe you don’t get into the school you want to. Modify your game strategy against a terribly weak opponent (as Darth Sensitive and Doctor Jackson have mentioned, and I applaud them) and you still win.
I find it amusing that there are some in this thread who seem to be missing that crushing this opponent so completely served no real purpose, other than (I presume) showing that they could.
I will simply add that as a fifth grader, I played on a basketball team that entered a tournament. We lost two games, one by 80-12 and one by 65-16 (or something like that). It was utterly humiliating. The first team also did full court presses until like the last two minutes. The second team tried to take it easy on us, which was really appreciated.
In any case, I never played basketball again. For many years because I was a kid and came to hate the sport because of that incident. As an adult, I don’t play basketball because I stopped playing as a kid.
This, I think, is the real reason that mercy rules are good. Humiliating losses can turn people off to a sport for a lifetime, which isn’t good for any recreational activity.
Yeah, it’s wrong. Poor sportsmanship. The league is also wrong not to have a rule to end such a mis-matched game.
I coach high school track/cross country in California. Didn’t need to be a teacher though I did have to have a background check through the DoJ.
Most school would be unable to have the needed coaching staff without non-teacher coaches…
This was a high school varsity game. It was also a non league game, which means the inferior team could have opted out of it. The article makes it sound like everyone knew this game would be ugly before it ever started. It also says the starters of the winning team sat out the entire 2nd half. What else can a coach do? Play the starters for one quarter?
The game should probably have never taken place, but it did and I wouldn’t suspend the coach for playing the way he did.
So they aren’t teachers?
Are they not the same people that teach the children P.E.?
So do these people have other jobs outside of being a basketball coach in the school? 
Example. The track team I was coaching: Head Coach-IT for the local Sheriff’s Dept.
Vault coach-large animal veterinarian, Distance coach(me) retired due to disability, Jumps coach- Teacher (anatomy, earth science), Sprints coach-cook at local rest home, Throws coach-supervisor at dairy plant
ETA: The district requires coaches to have played the sport in high school/college or coached previously. PE teachers are not always former athletes.
Nobody is trying to do that. At all.
I’ve never been a teacher, but I coached middle school and high school volleyball for a few years. I’m a software engineer in real life.
Doctor Jackson has explained in great detail in Post #30 what the winning coach could have and should have done.
A. The winning coach talked to the opposing coach beforehand about the differing levels of talent on the teams
B. He explained that his starters would be pulled at the half
C. Better question, what the hell is the other team even doing on their schedule or playing competitive basketball 
Losing builds character, right? :dubious:
How did the other team score their two? If it wasn’t free throws, I wanna know who slipped up on defense and bench that girl next game.
Right. There was simply no way to avoid scoring 161 points. I can see that now that you’ve pointed it out.
Come on.
At the half, they had one point. So they were fouled at least twice.
Well then review the game films and watch those fouls; dammit ladies WE COULDA HAD A SHUTOUT!!
There were six fouls.
Going to move this to the Game Room, although it could fit in many forums, I admit.
The more I think about it, this should have been one occasion where both coaches just simply agreed at some point that the game was over, without respect for the league rules.
They are basketball coaches for kids, not test subjects in the Milgram experiment.. “The game must continue because the rules require it! It is essential that the game continue! You have no other choice, the game must go on!”
If the people in charge of the league want it to be against the rules to play to the best of your ability beyond a certain point, they need to put it in writing at what point playing the damn game will earn you a suspension. I don’t have a problem with them having a mercy rule stating that once you are winning by fifty points the game is over, or whatever, but it is absolute bullshit to see a team unilaterally reduce their scoring by 40% in the second half and arbitrarily declare that they didn’t reduce their scoring enough.