In the case of high school sports, most parents encourage their children to play to develop their interests. They want their kids to find what they like to do and to learn social skills and discipline so they can perform with a team in a parent-independent way.
Some coaches seemingly take this harmless process to the extreme. A couple of cases that exhibit this would be the coaches of Yates High (Texas) and Christian Heritage High (Utah). Both of these teams are well-known for their very lopsided games. About two weeks ago, Christian Heritage won a game 108-3, averaging about two baskets a minute. Last year, Yates went on a 34-0 national title campaign, possessing a 175-35 victory that has been highly criticized as unsportsmanlike.
The way I look at it, these teams are performing, and performing well. These players are playing their hearts out. While it may be demoralizing to the other team, you have to give accolades to the winning side. It’s an impressive feat to break 100 points. It’s doubly impressive to do so while effectively defending and keeping your opponent on their heels. All in all, it’s a very impressive performance from the winning side.
That said, I feel like the coaches are living vicariously through their players. There is no need to create final scores like the ones above. Sure, it’s a testament to hard work and discipline, but how far does that go?
To annihilate the opposing teams the way Yates and Christian Heritage did would take an immense amount of preparation to orchestrate. I believe the coaches probably worked their players very, very hard. As a former varsity athlete in high school, I can appreciate long practices and hard work, but my teams never crushed our opponents like that.
I think high school sports, while of course being competitive, should put at least some emphasis on fun. That’s the reason I was in sports. I liked the people who were on my team, and we were out there to have fun. I was playing games with my friends, and every so often, we would compete with the skills we had been developing.
Our coaches didn’t put as much stock in team performance as they did in personal achievement. If we were performing beyond what was expected of us, they would drive us to perform even better.
They didn’t demand that we crush our opponent. They didn’t drive us to score as often as we could, or to demoralize the opponent. They just wanted us to expand our repertoire of in-game skills. They encouraged improvement, which led to more wins. I think this coaching style was very effective, because it made us more confident as players, which led us to being more confident as people.
All in all, I congratulate those teams for their fantastic performances. I only hope while they are dominating their opposition, they keep their sportsmanship alive. I hope they don’t let vanity take hold and start rubbing it in their opponent’s faces. I know high school sports affected who I am today and I wouldn’t want to see other kids negatively influenced by a horrible loss and poor sportsmanship.
