Sportsmanship!!

[Gregorio]

[/savingsilverman]

Academy basketball coach sees a win in 100-0 loss | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

Academy basketball coach sees a win in 100-0 loss

10:28 AM CST on Friday, January 23, 2009
By BARRY HORN / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]

The final score of the high school girls basketball game was 100-0, and his team had the nothing. Still, a week later, Dallas Academy Athletic Director Jeremy Civello was chalking up the game in the win column.

"My girls never quit," he said. "They played as hard as they could to the very end. They played with all their hearts at 70-nothing, 80-nothing and 100-nothing. I was really proud of them. That's what I told them after the game."

The game took place Jan. 13, on the road, against The Covenant School. Civello didn't expect his girls to win. He never really does. His girls haven't won a game in his four seasons at the White Rock Lake-area school, renowned for its work with students with a variety of learning problems. In most games, they haven't come close.

The Bulldogs play, Civello said, for more than the final score. They play in hope of improving skills, learning teamwork and picking up whatever life lessons athletics may bring.

But they won't be playing Covenant again this season; they canceled their Jan. 30 game against the team. After the game, Dallas Academy informed the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools that it was withdrawing its girls team from the league for the rest of the season.

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"We just said, 'The hell with it,' " said Jim Richardson, Dallas Academy's headmaster.

Against Covenant, Dallas Academy was surprised to see an obviously superior team keep the pressure on until it scored its 100th point in the fourth quarter. "I'm sure they could have won by 30 points and still had just as good a time," Civello said.

Civello, as is his custom, didn't say anything to anyone from the opposing school after the game. He always allows for a cooling-down period. A week later, he has not been in contact with anyone from Covenant.

In a brief e-mail statement Wednesday evening, Covenant coach Micah Grimes called his team's 100-point total "unfortunate."

"It just happened, and we are not happy about that," Grimes wrote. "Please know Covenant intended no harm against them. I see this as a real learning opportunity, so we can prevent this from happening in the future."

Grimes was not available for further comment.

Kyle Queal, head of school at Covenant, a North Dallas Christian school, was not at the game, but he said there have been internal discussions about it and that more are coming.

"It was poor judgment," Queal said. "I look at the box score and look at the box score, and it was not justified. It will never happen again."

Queal said he hopes his school will work "behind the scenes" with Dallas Academy to make sure the schools continue their "long-standing" relationship.

"I'll say this," Queal said of the Dallas Academy girls, "that was an amazing testimony to their tenacity and perseverance."

Edd Burleson, director of 236-member TAPPS, had a different description. He called the Class 2A, District 3 game an "embarrassing incident."

"Our motto is 'Competition With Honor,' " Burleson said. "I can't see how the one school can live up to that."

The box score that the Covenant head of school has been staring at reveals that his team scored 35 points in the first quarter before building a 59-0 lead at the half. The score after three quarters was 88-0.

"They are really good," Civello said. "Their point guard is terrific. This is what it came down to in the second half: steal at half court and layup. Steal and layup. Steal and layup. It was a layup drill. They finally eased up when they got to 100 with about four minutes left." Covenant's point guard had 48 points.

Dallas Academy is busy piecing together a new schedule of nonleague games. The school, which has final exams this week, played its final TAPPS game of the season Thursday night. The Bulldogs lost, 41-8, to Cambridge School of Dallas.

Cambridge Athletic Director Luke Yarbrough, the TAPPS district president, said he hired his basketball coach with the understanding "that it is possible to beat a team without attempting to demoralize it."

He said he could see the joy on the faces of the Dallas Academy girls when their team scored its points. He enjoyed the view. "I was so happy for those girls," he said.

Yarbrough said the 100-0 game will be among the first orders of business discussed when the district athletic directors meet next month.

Dallas Academy's Civello will be there. His school's boys team remains in the six-team TAPPS district. In fact, he was quick to point out that his boys, with a little extra motivation, beat Covenant, 50-38, immediately after the 100-0 girls game.

Then again, the boys team has about 120 students to choose from. There are about 20 girls in the high school. Some on the eight-girl team had never played before and will never play again.

"Most of these girls would never play on any other school in the state," he said. "But they can say they were high school varsity players here. And they can say it with a sense of achievement."

Later on the 100-0 night, Civello told his girls the life lesson they could take from their loss: "I told them someday they will be on top in a similar situation and they should remember how they felt when some people were cheering for a team to score a hundred points and shut us out. Hopefully, my girls all learned a lesson in sportsmanship that will last them a lifetime."

Apologies if this was already posted...but I didn't see it. It's a few days old, and since it happened the headmaster from the winning school is seeking to forfeit the win.

Rivals High - School seeks to forfeit 100-0 win


The only reason I'm really posting this is because I saw it on another forum and the people there somehow seemed to not think this was terrible. I'm not the type of person to give out medals for participating, or yell at a teacher for correcting in red in because it's embarassing...but this is just classless.

[archibaldcrane]

The only reason I'm really posting this is because I saw it on another forum and the people there somehow seemed not to not think this was terrible.

Dude, what?

edit: On topic, any shame derived from this should be directed towards the coach of the winning team, not really the players. If the point guard is able to basically steal/drive/layup on each play, it's the coach's job to tell her to let up. Players play, coaches coach, etc.

[Gregorio]

Dude, what?

edit: On topic, any shame derived from this should be directed towards the coach of the winning team, not really the players. If the point guard is able to basically steal/drive/layup on each play, it's the coach's job to tell her to let up. Players play, coaches coach, etc.

Oops, I had originally had something else written then changed it a bit...left an extra not in there.

And yes the coach is definitely the person to blame...I don't really fault the girls on the winning team for doing what they're being told to do. Personally if I were in the situation I would have missed a shot or 20, but meh...highschool.

[Kiro]

I went to one of my sister's last senior HS basketball games on Friday and they won 78 to 32. Lulz. NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS TOPIC BUT FUCK YEAH DOMINATING THE OTHER TEAM MUST BE FUN~

[TheShadyMan]

http://www.daddyscollectables.com/it...ED%20ELITE.jpgagainst The Covenant School.

[Kurp]

Texas coach fired after breaking with school over apology for 100-0 victory

Just read that before seeing this here

[Dezzimal]

Trophies for everyone!

[Serif]

There are about 20 girls in the high school. Some on the eight-girl team had never played before and will never play again.

What the fuck did they think was going to happen?

Was the point guard just supposed to get the ball across half court and then dribble it for the remaining time of the quarter?

Don't blame it on the head coach who whooped that ass, the coach who has not won anything in 4 years is apparently so stupid that he can't realize he should of not be in the division/league he was in.

[Tyche]

What the fuck did they think was going to happen?

Was the point guard just supposed to get the ball across half court and then dribble it for the remaining time of the quarter?

Don't blame it on the head coach who whooped that ass, the coach who has not won anything in 4 years is apparently so stupid that he can't realize he should of not be in the division/league he was in.

Theya re in the same district. You remember high school right? You play teams in your district. Districts aren't controlled by the coaches or probably even the current administration. I actually sent Michael Wilbon an exhaustive e-mail since he blasted the coach for scheduling that team on PTI (Which I'm sure he certainly read . He (the coach) had no control over it. They are in the same district. Glad the coach got fired, he's an idiot.

[Deejay]

I think this is enough proof that girls shouldn't be allowed to play basketball.

[0ni0n]

I don't know. If your team is losing 100-0, there's more to worry about than sportsmanship.

[Null]

I wonder how many people were still sitting in the stands by the end of the game.

[Null]

Although it is girls basketball so there couldn't have been more then 10 to begin with.

[0ni0n]

Texas coach fired after breaking with school over apology for 100-0 victory

Just read that before seeing this here

No reason to apologize whatsoever if it was won fair and square. Political correctness is the new american epidemic.

[Akiyama]

Sportsmanship is really hard to look at in this sort of story. While I don't agree with piling it on when you're up 59-0 at halftime, it sounds like the winning team really didn't have to try at all to score if they could just steal it at half court and make a lay-up.

Also, while I like Michael Wilbon most of the time, when he's completely wrong about something, he's quite possibly dumber than Tony.

[Deejay]

Also, while I like Michael Wilbon most of the time, when he's completely wrong about something, he's quite possibly dumber than Tony.

When you're overly passionate about something, (see: Christianity) you tend to look extremely stupid from time to time.

[Skyylya]

personally i don't see anything wrong with it and if i were a player i wouldn't let up. not in high school.

If any of the girls on that team aspire to play in college the college they apply to and hope for a scholarship is going to go off their statistics not whether they let other teams do well in a blowout.

It's the fault of the team that sucks for putting their players in that position. If you have that little of a pool to select from you should do intramural sports and things if you wanna learn teamwork and whatnot. Varsity sports are for people who want to progress in that sport to college or at least experience high levels of competition even if it is just for fun.

That's how i see it anyway. If i were the player on a team that was winning by a lot, i wouldn't just let people run past me and score or miss on purpose cause that would only hurt myself in the future when i was being looked at by colleges.

[Mizango]

Bullshit. Hire John Fox, he would have went up 2-0 and played prevent defense the rest of the game.

[octopus]

This actually reminds me... I read that some of the high school leagues in Chicago still do not have a shot clock in their rules... so you'll still see scores like 13-7 as their final scores >.>

[0ni0n]

I am surprised that there's no mercy rule in basketball. For instance, you will automatically concede if the point spread is more than 50 in the 3rd or 4th quarter.