Acquisitionism Redux: Running Up The Score

Apparently, a girls’ high school basketball coach in Texas has been fired because his team WON a game 100-0.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482825,00.html

On its Web site last week, Covenant, a private Christian school, posted a statement regretting the outcome of its Jan. 13 shutout win over Dallas Academy. "It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition," said the statement.

Meanwhile, the coach had a completely different take on it. “I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls’ basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."

Just by way of contrast, one only has to go back to 1916 and the most lopsided game score in college football history: Georgia Tech’s 222-0 (yes, 222-0) victory over Cumberland College. With Tech up 126-0 at the half, coach John Heisman (yes, THAT Heisman) admonished his troops: “Men, don’t let up. You never know what these Cumberlanders have up their sleeves.”

I suppose that what caught me was not just the fact that the Covenant administrators publicly professed their shame at running up the score. It was that they specifically made a religious reference in disavowing their team’s achievement (“Onward Christian Soldi…wait, not that far onward!”). So, whether it violated religious principles or simply was not in keeping with unwritten “mercy” rules against running up a score when a contest is not suspended at a predetermined tally.

The item I found particularly odd was that a presumably conservative institution would suddenly resort to a rather progressive principle—affirmative action (“Lets not overcompete, ladies”)—only to cover it up in religious platitudes. (Which in and of itself raises the question: what if they were competing against those who were less than “Christlike”?)

Aside from reading too much into this event as a microcosm of certain undercurrents in contemporary American politics and culture, I would actually like to point out that in truth, as I’ve described in my essays on what I call “Acqusitionism”, Americans aren’t only happy if they win; they need someone else to lose. However, in sports, the only thing that are hated more than losers are quitters (it seems that Dallas Academy has come in for all sorts of praise for persisting while losing 100-0).

Even worse than losers quitting are winners quitting. In 1984, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were beating the New York Jets 41-14 very late in the 4th quarter, but the Jets were driving for a meaningless touchdown and using up the clock, and the Bucs needed to get the ball back to give their running back James Wilder a shot at a season combined-yardage record. So the Bucs all but lay down on the final drive (enough that it was evident on the videotape) and let the Jets score. This did not sit well with anyone in the sports world, but especially not the Jets, who, in a rematch with the Bucs the next season, set all sorts of team offensive records including points in beating up on Tampa Bay 62-28.

If you’re going to compete, you compete. Until the clock runs out.