Roll Call with Sarge: Sportsmanship

By Hank Bonecutter | December 14, 2012 |

Clarksville Tn – Everyone growing up has been schooled about the virtues of sportsmanship, be it in sports or in other kinds of competition, but earlier this week a 107-2 victory by Bloomington (Ind.) South High School girls basketball team over Arlington (Ind.) has brought the question of sportsmanship back to the forefront of discussion on a national level.

This isn’t the first time a huge blowout win by a team has brought this question up, and it won’t be the last, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve found that sportsmanship – like beauty – is in the eye of the beholder.

It’s a common dilemma in blowout games, when — and how — should teams let up?

Now before I go much further, I just want to make it clear that I’m not one of those persons that feel that everyone should get a trophy at the end of the season and a pat on the back saying you’re the best thing since sliced bread, even though you didn’t win a game all year. But I am a person that feels sportsmanship today isn’t quite the same as the sportsmanship I was brought up with, and in this case the change may not be for the good.

Nowadays, you see lopped-sided scores in many sports and people never think twice about it, even at the college and professional levels, but when you see a 107-2 type of final margin it gets your attention. When is enough, enough. When does common sense show up?

Yes, Bloomington’s coach played all of his players and rotated them in and out, and no you don’t want to tell your team not to play hard.  But in a game with no mercy-rule — the Indiana High School Athletic Association doesn’t have a mercy-rule — like some state high school associations have, including Tennessee, common sense say’s a 105-point win is unsportsmanlike.

To score 107 points in a high school basketball game you have to average 3.34 points per minute for the entire game to finish with that total, so that means three or four shots per minute – at least. The Bloomington coach said he didn’t tell his girls to stop shooting because that would have been more embarrassing and that Arlington was playing an aggressive 2-3 zone defense.

How aggressive was it if you scored 107 points?

Here is where common sense should have taken over.

Set up individual things to work on like getting the ball to a specific area on the court, making eight or nine passes before a shot, working on reversing the ball, no 3-point shot attempts or fast breaks, practice on their weakest moves, work on off handed dribbling, and offhand shots. These are just a few things a team can still work hard on during a game, which they would still win by a wide margin despite these actions.

The coach at Bloomington South was put in a tough situation, but he also had a great opportunity to display grace and he failed to take advantage of that chance. He could use the game as a teaching moment — to show what sportsmanship is about .

About Hank Bonecutter

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