Now, this could make for an wrongful termination lawsuit. Micah Grimes, the coach of Covenant School of Dallas, was reportedly fired after refusing to apologize for a 100 – 0 victory of his girls’ basketball team over Dallas Academy. He insists that it is ridiculous to apologize “for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.” He was fired shortly thereafter.
Covenant, a Christian school, was mortified by the success of its girls. Kyle Queal, head of school, and board chair Todd Doshier signed a statement that “It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition.”
Dallas Academy only has 20 girls in its high school and is winless over the last four seasons. The school includes students with “learning differences,” such as short attention spans or dyslexia.
For the full story, click here.
wah wah wah, just like a liberal. afraid of a little competition and needs momma or dada’s love. what a crock.
You overcome adversity by getting through it and prevailing not hoping someone is going to hold your hand. You Buddha and Mespo are kindred souls.
“You cannot shelter these children from the disapointments in life.”
Sally,
Here’s my take on this. There are unavoidable and avoidable disappointments in life. Every person, no matter what, will experience real tragedy in their life. The best “training” for real, unavoidable tragedy is loving kindness. I know people don’t need to have experienced loving kindness to face tragedy well, but it is the best basis for confronting hardship. A child/adult who knows they are loved has a reservoir of strength that enables them to hold up under great stress.
To me, things like sports and homecoming crowns (as mentioned in a previous post) etc. are times where children can be protected, both physically and emotionally. Some sports probably shouldn’t be played at all at so young an age (football-head injuries). Making the loss of a game have less sting, well why not? These events have no instrinsic meaning in life. They are made up competitions in a society that values competition over connection. We think competitiveness is vital because that’s been preached to us from every corner. Still, there’s real evidence showing it’s not really a good way to live.
There’s plenty of times when children will face unavoidable heartache. The made up stuff is dispensible and should be dealt with as such.
I’m not quite sure what to make of this post. On the one hand, I agree that children should not be spared from exposure to life’s disappointments. On the other, I have a hard time understanding why the game in question would even have been scheduled. When I was in high school, the administration scheduled a game with a smaller school in an adjoining state. We won 82-0. It was embarrassing for everyone. Before the first half had even ended, our coach was playing the last string, with the center at quarterback. The opposing coach approached our team after the game and thanked our coach for not running up the score! We scheduled no more games with the school.
The coach who was fired may or may not have run up the score, but the fact that the opposing team did not score a single field goal suggests that something was amiss. That sort of humiliation does not teach any worthwhile lessons to either victor or vanquished.
On a lighter note, the story reminds me of the old Monty Python soccer skit, in which the Long John Silvers play a team of gynecologists in white lab coats. The Long John Silvers, all of whom have peg legs, are absolutely immobile on the field, permitting the gynecologists to score at will. It remains one of the funniest, and most sophomoric, things I’ve ever seen.
Mespo:
you make a good point, but should the loosing team be allowed to play in that league if they were so bad. Maybe an easier league would be better suited to their abilities.
I think the loosing school should shoulder some of the burden for insisting that this team play in a league they are not prepared for.
(go ahead and take your shot)
Having dyslexia, ADHD, ADD or any other learning disability does not make a person physically disabled to perform a sport.
You cannot shelter these children from the disapointments in life. It’s a fact of life, it’s not always fair.
Sugar coating things only makes things worse
Sally:
Learning differences means the children so affected have a difficult time processing information. In the context of a physical activity it MAY mean “trouble with team sports. You get the rules mixed up, you make mistakes, and you are often picked last for teams. When you were younger, you had trouble learning to ride a bike. You knock things over or bump into things. You feel clumsy.” (http://school.familyeducation.com/learning-disabilities/38789.html)
Hearing this makes the coaches conduct even more disturbing. What kind of guy wants a record like this. It should be a bronze albatross around his neck.
MASkeptic:
“The coach in question actually said, and I’m citing the quote in the article: “My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent” Which, in order to be a true statement, must mean that he genuinely felt that up until the very end there was a chance that they could have staged a comeback.”
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Or possibly his concept of reality is slightly skewed.
Fudd:
The winning coach should never have told his kids that. He just should have dialed it back. I had a championship FB team one year and had to play the worst team in the league that had only been in existence for one year. By halftime the score (with reserves starting the game) was 28-0 and heading for 56-0. We substituted guards for tailbacks, kickers for wideouts, and played all reserves the rest of the way, and generally had a good time. The other team had no idea who our starters or position players were and they players never caught on. I even had my son, who was the center, intentionally fumble a snap on the goal line to avoid a TD. The final score ended up 35-14 and was the second closest game the other team played all year. The opposing coach, who caught on about the third quarter, thanked me for allowing the kids to have some fun without humiliating them. My team probably knew what was up, but never said a word (they were disciplined) and then went on to win it all. I see no negative in this situation.
personally I dont think it should be an issue, when I was young I played hockey against a team that was far superior to ours and we lost about 10-2, 8-3 something like that. I knew one of the other players as he was a neighbor and he told me after the game that the his coach had told them to ease up so the score wouldnt be 20-0 or 30-0. When I heard that I was humiliated. If you get your but whipped fair and square and you played hard that is honobable, nothing honorable in haven the other team wipe your nose for you.
The coach in question actually said, and I’m citing the quote in the article: “My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent” Which, in order to be a true statement, must mean that he genuinely felt that up until the very end there was a chance that they could have staged a comeback.
“You wonder if organizations should have a “break in case of Internet sensation” alarm so they know how to deal with sudden bursts of publicity without panicking.”
Now that’s a good idea, Bob. It should be mandatory business equipment.
Mr. Turley:
I’m no lawyer, but a wrongful termination lawsuit was the first thing I thought of as well: http://yourkidsnotgoingpro.wordpress.com/
It was nine days between when the game ended and when the story appeared, followed hours later by the school’s apology. A Dallas Morning News reporter told me he read his paper’s own boxscores to learn of the game, and followed it up the next week. Covenant had won games by more than 50 points a few times before the Dallas Academy game. If you read Micah Grimes’ response, which is linked from my site, you’ll see that he knew he was toast no matter what. Clearly, the school fired him not for blowing out a team, but for all the bad publicity it received.
You wonder if organizations should have a “break in case of Internet sensation” alarm so they know how to deal with sudden bursts of publicity without panicking.
Cheers,
Bob Cook
Sally,
I’m not sure how any of that invalidates the coach’s display of poor sportsmanship and total lack of proportion RE: competition and the values of mercy and compassion. “Win at any cost”? That strategy sound familiar? This play came from Cheney’s notebook. No. There are ready too many people in positions of responsibility with this retrograde mindset. As evidenced by his actions, I’d bet a dollar this guy votes Neocon straight across the line and probably thinks Bush the Criminal walks on water. Do you really think he’s a proper person to teach children, let alone interact with special needs children (regardless of degree of disability)?
I don’t.
No the school website says the school is for children with learning differences, not disabilities.
Read about it here on the school website
http://www.dallas-academy.com/page.asp?iframe=about_us_overview.asp
It clearly states
“The multisensory approach is especially beneficial to those students who have been diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and other learning differences.”
I’m not sure that you’ve gotten the gist of this situation. At half time, when Covenant was ahead by more than 50 points to zero, the coach of Dallas Academy suggested that he might want to put in his substitutes, who were still far superior to the DA team. Instead, Grimes chose to keep his starters in the game and run up the score, thus not merely winning, but humiliating the DA team.
Dallas Academy is a learning disabled school, which is hardly described as merely “short attention spans or dyslexia.” That trivializes learning disabilities and, frankly, is offensive. High functioning learning disabled students run the gamut from dyslexia to Aspergers to Fragile X. It’s seriously unbecoming to trivialize learning disabilities.
Haha…
Well I think that girls basket ball team did amazing and they used to have a great coach….
That was their last winning game of the season
Sally:
“Well he could have said
“Sorry you lost!!!”
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I am guessing that he said something similar:
“Thanks for the game, losers!”
Not only a classy display of Christian values but just what I’d expect from Dallas too.
Well he could have said
“Sorry you lost!!!”
I think it’s a great little story. Some school will scoop him up quickly for their own team
My advice to “coach” Micah Grimes is to pack your whistle and apply for a job in the NBA. One has to wonder about the personality profile of someone who enjoys seeing children completely frustrated and humiliated–especially kids with special needs. Not only should he be fired as unsuitable, he should be professionally evaluated.
Lest you think that the Covenant team just couldn’t help themselves, here’s the observation of one parent from the article:
“A parent who attended the game said Covenant continued to make 3-pointers — even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.”
Class acts.