R.S. De France is a College and University instructor of English Composition. He has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing. One of his life-long pursuits has been writing and covering anything related to sports, specifically the NBA. Recently, De France, his wife, and another colleague started an internationally read magazine at Shwibly.com.
Thursday’s demolition of the UNC-Asheville college basketball team at the hand of Tennessee, 124-49 reminded me of some other recent, controversial blowouts. Blowouts can happen in almost any sport, at almost every level, but the ethics of each situation is different. Ethics becomes a controversial issue depending on how winning coaches lead their teams to victory. So the question arises: is there a right way to win? Do teams win like West Springfield’s basketball that pulled their starters after opening the game 20-2 en route to an 89-11 victory? Or, do they win like The Covenant School that left their starters in to press and drill three-pointers in the fourth quarter of a humiliating 100-0 smack down?
Novelist Pat Conroy illuminates the feelings of victory and defeat in My Losing Season, “there is no downside to winning. It feels fabulous forever,” he wrote. “But there is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss”. Loses do not, however, only transform the losing team, but also the winning team.
There are so many different ethical situations at varying levels of basketball.
First, the NCAA is an arena for somewhat frequent blowouts. The recent blowout wins of Tennessee over UNC-Ashveville and Kansas’ 112-75 victory over Tennessee Tech. are somewhat frequent. Bulldogs coach Eddie Biendenbach said afterwards, “”I am embarrassed for UNC-Asheville, for Tennessee folks, because we wanted to come in here and make them learn, make them a better basketball team. All we did tonight was give them some exercise”. Due to the decisiveness of the win, the coach seems to feel more embarrassed, but should he?
Second, boy’s high school basketball is no place for those who cannot stand an enormous blowout. Having been on both sides of blowout games at that level, I add that blowouts are difficult to learn from. It’s hard to analyze the game and learn something from losses without game film. This season alone #6 ranked Bloomington (Ind.) South has blasted the opposition by 99-52, 77-45, and 80-48. Coach J.R. Holmes sheepishly said, “it’s hard to tell kids not to shoot,” as his team demolished Lakewood 74-36. Should he really even have to make such a defensive statement? Holmes was referring to his second and third string players, so what’s wrong with letting them shoot? He sounded embarrassed for the losing team(s), but should he be? Is that not the nature of the sport at that level?
For some historical perspective, blowouts are nothing new to sports. “Perhaps the most notorious is Georgia Tech’s 222-0 victory against Cumberland in a 1916 football game. The coach who administered that beat-down did not apologize or forfeit. In fact, the most revered trophy in college football is named for John Heisman”. Not only was that an unmerciful win, but Heisman is revered. So, we can see from that, sometimes a coach and a team should not feel bad about administering a smack down.
Finally, we come to a situation that may not fit neatly into our notions of the ethics of winning. Not women’s high school basketball in particular, but when Dallas Academy lost 100-0 against The Covenant School, that crossed a line. Not only was Covenant playing against a school for students with learning disabilities, but starters buried three’s and pressed the disabled girls deep into the fourth quarter. After the game, the team apologized, and the winning coach was fired. Should he have kept his starters in? Should the team have apologized? Most importantly, should the coach have been fired over this?
