BigT-OF COURSE life is a competition! Saying life is competitive does not preclude a social safety net! When you are going to college, or into the workforce, you a competing with people to make money for yourself, so you can function in the world, and maybe even make a little extra so you can have a little fun.
We’ve coddled kids to the point that once they get out into the world, it’s a shock to their system, and self-esteem, when someone tells them ,“no”, or forces them to actually work for something.
1 - Pop Warner leagues place kids at levels on an age/weight system for safety, you don’t get 65lb kids playing 120lb kids
2 - The score differential doesn’t make kids suddenly gain weight during the game. The possibility of an injury is the same whether the score is 0-0 or 35-0
3 - When I played, if we were getting beat bad, we just wanted to keep playing - winning was fun but we would have taken a blowout and being able to play the game over changing how the game is played due to score
4 - We ran into this with my kids but typically the situation had absolutely nothing to do with a psycho coach, it typically had to do with some programs had more community support, more kids in the area, multiple teams at a specific level (which can open the door for some manipulation of talent on each team, not so good), and some coaches are simply better at getting their kids to be disciplined, all of which added up to some teams were really good
5 - My vote - don’t worry about blwouts that much because of 2 things:
a - Based on my own experiences, I don’t think it affects the kids like some people might be thinking it affects them
b - Kids need to learn how to handle adversity and keep fighting, it’s an important lesson in life
Added:
For those saying stop the game - that’s the worst option - kids want to play and you’re teaching them to quit
I remember a little league game, we were down 21 to 4, we came back in the last two innings and won 24 to 22. One of the most exciting little league games I played. And I remember when we were down 21 to 4, we weren’t thinking we were losers, we were thinking “man we need to score a lot of runs to catch up”.
Ending a game is the absolute worst option, kids (and adults) want to play the game.
Striving to improve is a great way to live your life. Thinking you will ever be the best at anything will cause you mental problems, but pushing yourself to improve is healthy.
I can think of nothing more patronising and disrespectful than knowing that my opponent wasn’t even allowed to play properly against me.
Losing I could handle, getting thrashed I could handle, but the idea that somebody would be standing over us telling the other side that they had to stop playing and pretend that they couldn’t score would be shameful to me.
At least in a normal game I still have some chance at redemption. If it is still a full game then at least I can try my hardest and perhaps score a goal/touchdown, or pull off some amazing tackle. We may have gotten thrashed but at least I can hold my head up and say that I tried my best. But in these mercy games you have taken that away from me. Scored a touchdown? Only because the other team let me. Great tackle? Only because the other team weren’t allowed to play properly. Even these meager achievements are now rendered meaningless.
It seems like a pointless rule. Why not just say that once one team is ahead by 35 points, the game is over? Why put the onus on the winning coach to look for ways to avoid scoring?
I don’t know how common it is to have coaches run up the score just to be unpleasant. But ISTM that a skunk rule that ends the game when one team is ahead by an insurmountable margin works at least as well as fines. Plus it avoids the embarassment to both sides of pretending to play the game.
Unless 212-0 games are common in that league, this appears to be a problem better addressed less punitively.
In middle and high school, I was on both the giving and receiving ends of outright beatings where the winning team and coaches did everything reasonable in their power to limit the score, and for whatever reason, the one team kept scoring, even when the 3rd stringers were playing.
When I was on the winning side, it boiled down to the fact that you take a 3rd or 4th string kid and put him in the game during the 3rd quarter and give him the ball, and he’s going to do his best to score a touchdown, even if he’s not up to the 1st string standards.
When on the losing side, it was more a matter of a total collapse of team morale. I mean, there was one loss where we lost something like 64-3. After the first 28 points they scored on us, it was clear we weren’t going to win and a lot of the guys gave up, and they just ran roughshod over us- our guys just didn’t care anymore.
I can only imagine that in youth football the coaching skill differential is higher and the player maturity is lower, so it’s easier to get into these situations than in higher levels of the game.
I’d just do like what Shodan suggests- once there’s a 35 point lead, that’s the score, and the game’s over. No sense in risking injury to kids at that point, and no point in running up the score either. Same thing as a run-rule in baseball/softball.
I was an 11 year old player on a basketball team that lost two games in a local tournament, something like 88-11 and 79-16. It sucked. The first team was literally running Harlem Globetrotter-type passing drills on us. Although I’m not pissed about it today, and I like to crack jokes about it now, after that I totally lost any interest in playing basketball again. I’m pretty sure half my team did, as well. Sure, we played soccer, baseball, and other sports, but from that point on, basketball just sucked. Why 11 year olds should be subject to humiliation like that? There’s no useful lesson learned.
Even still, penalizing the winning team with fines isn’t appropriate. I agree with others, just call the game after a certain score, pass out the Gatorade and snacks and that’s that.
I’d like some context, but I suspect there were some asshole coaches in that league who couldn’t get a hardon without scoring 80+ points on some hapless kids. It’s sad. I especially feel sorry for the low string players on the winning team that still won’t get put in even while up by insurmountable leads.
This is a good point, and another reason for a skunk rule rather than fines. Or maybe a rule that once you get to 35-0, none of the first- or second-stringers play, but you still finish the game.
My cousin-in-law used to coach, and in his league, everybody got rotated in on a regular basis. First-, second-, third-string - didn’t matter, you got to play.
Trust me. If they beat you by over three dozen points, they pity you anyway. A lot.
Even though I think as executed it’s a stupid rule, I agree with Ravenman that humiliating kids of that age is pointless and probably produces more assholes out of the winners than one can imagine. It’s not just about teaching the losers something here.
I love it whenever someone brings up the “everyone gets a trophy” thing as proof that this generation is doomed when it’s been happening for over 30 years now.
Would your local radio DJ happen to be in Columbus, OH?
Agreed. The threat of ending the game early may even deter the superior team from piling it on. Kids want to keep playing. But, if you’re that concerned about it, just stop the game when you think it’s out of control.
That said, I don’t like either idea. Suffering through a butt-kicking is a learning experience. Besides, unlike baseball, football actually has a time limit. So the piling on has to stop at some point.
I agree that they would be exceedingly rare, however…there is such a thing as playing for pride and making a game of it. Getting blown out can test your character, individually and as a team.
Say a team runs up a 35-0 score in the 1st half. Seemingly insurmountable. If you are coaching the team on the bad end of that score do you throw in the towel? Or do you give them a pep talk and see how they respond? Would it better to call the game at halftime or see if your boys can muster some spirit and lose 48-14? And resist the temptation to abandon sportsmanship and get ins a few cheap shots?
IMO, there is no shame in getting beaten, even badly. There is quite a bit in giving up.
You get penalized if you beat the other team by 35 points or more. 35 points is five touchdowns and five extra points. So, what… you should deliberately miss one of the PATs?
Anyway, call the game once it reaches 35. 35-0 is embarrassing enough without turning it into 84-0 and completely destroying the losing team’s desire to ever play football again.
When I was in tee ball, so what 6 or 7?, we all knew the coaches were lying when they said that the game was a “tie.” We also never bought that they didn’t know the score when they kept score right in front of us. (I will admit to now wondering why they bothered to keep a scorecard if the games “didn’t count”)
Since my father was the coach, I was able to call him out on it. He never answered my question though.
I come from a very different point of view. While I am an American, I am married to an Australian and have developed a taste for rugby. In rugby, it is considered insulting to stop scoring. If you don’t try to score anymore and there is still time left in the game, you are telling your opponents that they aren’t worth anything. As I understand the custom, ceasing to score in garbage time is considered to be pretty much the same as carrying the ball to the 1 yard line, turning around, and blowing raspberries at the defenders as they try to catch up to you.
My view on “mercy rules” and “running up the score” is pretty simple, if different than most Americans: If you want a mercy rule, just end the game when one team leads by/score a certain number of points. It works just fine in tennis. If you don’t want a mercy rule, then play the game until it is over. Period.
I will concede that in youth games, including the NCAA, a team should be fair to its second and third strings and let them play when the game gets out of hand.
I don’t follow this logic. A few people have said that it would be worse for the kids to be beaten by some larger margin so either call the game or force the winning side to stop trying. How do you propose that the kids on the losing side reframe their loss as some kind of positive? Do you really think that losing 35-0 in less than half a game would somehow be a more uplifting feeling? Or are all these losing teams full of incredibly stupid kids, insensible to the enormity of their defeat.
I think we’re all skipping something very important here…
Show of hands, for those that played youth sports that employed a “Mercy Rule,” how many times do you remember it happening? I played Little League from 6-13 and I remember mercying an opposing team once, maybe twice in seven years. I don’t think any team I was on was mercied, but I honestly can’t remember.
What I’m saying is, application of a “Mercy Rule” is probably pretty damn rare because most youth leagues don’t have that feared power team that they always seem to have in the movies. And even if one team is better than the others, it’s rare that they’re that much better. I have another Little League memory of this kid with no-hit stuff named Steve. Steve was regularly pitching shutouts but his team couldn’t hit for shit. I don’t think they mercied anyone all season.
As a schoolboy I had experience of close games and mismatches both ways, but we stuck to it, and I know one time when both our A and B teams for the year had beaten our hated rival school from across the city, “pity” took the form of singing some alternative lyrics to the tune “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” [sup]*[/sup] in the changing room after the game. Until the sports master stepped in (not least for the sake of the tender ears of the under-12s also playing that day).
Playing club rugby a few years later, I’ll admit that getting trounced by a younger, fitter and generally better side was never exactly an uplifting experience, but there was always the beer after the game, and the amusement of hearing the side who were beating you 82 - 6 moaning at each other about the score they’d let in.
If you’re over eight then you probably shouldn’t need a mercy rule, but the superior side should keep playing sensibly and not pull out the show-off moves they’d never dare use against equal opposition. Otherwise, life sucks, and while I resent having got out first ball in a House cricket match to someone who was used to blowing away men’s sides on a Saturday afternoon, I think I’d have minded worse if he’d bowled me lollipops off a one-pace run-up. Sport is definitely a field where you have to learn to meet with Triumph and Disaster.
[sup]* It turns out that the tune goes perfectly well to the phrase “We gave them a fucking good hiding”.[/sup]