Sportsmanship Imitates Life

Recently there was a high school women's basketball game that ended in a lopsided 100-0 score. It was that even after The Covenant School had the Dallas Academy dead to rights by half time, they only stopped putting full court pressure when they went up 100-0 with four minutes left in the game.

The head coach of the Covenant School is now looking for ways to get their win forfeit, because they did not win "with honor". And the head coach of the Dallas Academy hopes that his ladies "learned a lesson in sportsmanship that will last them a lifetime."

I told this to a close person of mine and they replied "They shouldn't try to forfeit. That's unfair just because they won against a bad team who could not play, they should dumb down their game?"

Of course why would anyone forfeit games when they win? Its survival of the fittest right?

And then it hit me. Right there in middle Christian America, even the righteous can be damned by our personal quest for glory. We forget that we are all in this together, this game of life. It should come as no surprise that a girls' basketball team runs up the score against a far inferior team, since that is what we have conditioned ourselves to be.

Look at the exploitation of worker's in China or Jamaica. Look at how we whisper about people paying top dollar for fair trade food. Listen to the talk radio hosts mock minimum wage increases as an "afront to capitalism".

It should come as no shock that little girls can fall prey to the tempations of near sighted glory. For that is what most of us have been subconsiously acting on for the better part of our collective history. While it is not the best way, nor the only way, to conduct ourselves, we choose to lead by it.

Maybe these young ladies gave us a small wake up call in the middle of a basketball game. I know it did me.

**Update**

Apparently the Coach of the winning team refuses to apologize for his team's win and "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."

My man. You won 100-0. You continued to have your team go on a full court press even after being up 59-0 at halftime. You issued orders to continue to shoot 3 pointers and score until you hit 100. The game was over when it was 88-0 at the end of 3 quarters, yet you still played as if the game was close.

You're right. You shouldn't apologize for your team, nor should they.

You should apologize for yourself as a coach. Sure I'm damning you, casting the stone, etc. But I can not imagine continuing to run the game like it was close up 59-0. Have you never seen the outrage by teams that have done this before? Do you NOT watch SportsCenter!?

Sigh. Ah well. At least it wasn't an European soccer match. Hi oh!