"Go, Fight, Win"...or not

100-0. Now there’s a record for you. Perfect in its round numbers and perception of perfection. Unless this is the score of a girls’ high school basketball game, that is. Then it becomes an albatross unceremoniously hung around the neck of Micah Grimes, the winning coach.

On January 13 two teams got together for a basketball game: Covenant and Dallas Academy. They both enjoyed reputations from the opposite ends of the spectrum. While Covenant was seen as possessing a far superior athletic program, Dallas Academy could claim only 20 students overall and a girl’s basketball squad of 8 players. Kind of like David and Goliath, wouldn’t you say? And appropriate, too, because both schools are Christian institutions.

Regardless of the seeming mismatch, both teams showed up and both teams played to the best of their ability. At halftime the score was 59-0, Covenant. There is no “mercy rule” in games played at this level so there was no alternative but to play it out. Final score: 100-0. Wow! Who woulda thunk? (Of course, the Dallas Academy girl’s basketball team had not won a game in the last four seasons so, while the score may have been surprising, the result was less so.) And who could know that the fireworks were just beginning?

A veritable shit storm ensued over bad sportsmanship and the debilitating effects such a loss would incur in the hearts and minds of the Dallas Academy players. Mr. Grimes, the Covenant coach, was fired after refusing to apologize for his team’s victory. And the story has gained national attention where a less public exposure might go a long way to letting the result settle in the archives of minutiae, where it belongs.

I have some questions: first on my mind is what score would have been acceptable to the Covenant powers-that-be? 98-2? 94-6? What splitting of the allotted 100 points would have allowed Coach Grimes to keep his job? Every player and coach now needs to know when a game becomes a rout and the associated ramifications. And if Grimes had told his players to sit back and “let the other team score some points”, would he not then be demonized for betraying the code of athletes everywhere? And what of Jeremy Civello, the Dallas Academy coach? If Mr. Grimes was fired for his lop-sided win, was Mr. Civello given a raise for his lop-sided defeat?

We live in an age where no one gets cut from a team and all participants get some form of award if only for showing up. The building of self-esteem takes precedence over the building of character. There was a time when athletics prepared the athlete for the harsh realities of adult life where there are no prizes for breathing in and breathing out. And sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, you don’t win and may even be penalized. While self-esteem comes in useful at times like this, it’s character that helps you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. Isn’t it time to return to that core principle of trying one’s best and being satisfied with the successes or learning from the defeats? I think so.

With that thought I mind, kudos to the Dallas Academy girls’ basketball team. They will not go down in the annals of history as a winning machine, but they sure as hell should be lauded for their efforts. Someday they will win a game and I can only hope that the media will make as much hoopla over that game as they did over the January 13th contest.

Oh, one more thought: Kyle Queal, the Covenant Headmaster, said his coach’s behavior was not a “Christ-like…approach to competition”. I’m drawn to the story of Samson and the Philistines in which Samson slays the entire Philistine army with the jawbone of an ass. Now, did he really have to kill them all? Could he have left a few survivors and, in so doing, be more Christ-like?