One for Lookout123: Win by more than 5 points = you lose

[xoxoxoBruce]

Trying to fix the point spread.

[monster]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

Not necessarily. I played baseball for a good number of years and I can say that once a team gets hot, there is almost nothing the coach can do to keep their team from scoring. In the 35-1 game I mentioned, the backups were put in early and they did just as well as the starters. We went through five pitchers and only one of them was able to do somewhat decently. We had no confidence. They were dripping confidence. Their coach could have only prevented the score by putting players in positions they usually don't play (very bad sportsmanship in baseball) and literally told their players to not hit the ball (something you don't do).

In high school baseball, and I'm guessing softball too, big score differences are going to happen and most of the time it isn't the coach's fault or bad sportsmanship on their part. Also, many losing coaches will not "give up" the game as well. That is why the slaughter rule exists. To prevent 5 hour long games that are clearly one sided.


Saying that, I strongly disagree with the five run rule. Different circumstances.

apples and oranges. Soccer games are a fixed length and there are plenty of sporting ways to keep the game going and interesting and help improve the kids skills without racking up huge score differences.

[lookout123]

Buuuuullllshit is all I've gotta say.

You play to win while developing players. I've coached plenty of games where we easily could have won by 20+ points but chose a different route. In league play I typically put restrictions on the players if we are up by more than 4 or 5 points. Lil Lookout has played almost entire games only being allowed to score with his left foot or his head, or having 3 complete passes before a shot on goal, or any of a dozen different challenges that will keep the fight going but even it up a little. I will NEVER tell a child not to score but I will absolutely positively make it harder for them to do so.

One of my adult leagues adopted a new rule after some blowout games last year. If your team is losing by 6 points you get to add a player to the field. If you go down by 8 another player can come on. This rule promptly became known as the "bitch rule" and jeers of "BITCH!" would follow every single time the extra players touched the ball. The rule still stands, but teams don't add players anymore.

Sports, like life, are unfair. Suck it up and learn from it.

[ZenGum]

How about:
The team that is up by 5 goals loses a player.
Lose a player for every five goals you are up.
Get players back if the other team catches up.

[Shawnee123]

How about:

You win the game or you lose the game. At the next practice, you work on the skills you are lacking, to try to win the next game, or at least improve.

Maybe my experiences and the experiences I hear from my brothers were unusual. Our coaches were good, didn't try to kill a bunch of kids for some sort of pride in themselves.

Usually, it's the parents you gotta watch out for.

[squirell nutkin]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

How about:

You win the game or you lose the game. At the next practice, you work on the skills you are lacking, to try to win the next game, or at least improve.

Maybe my experiences and the experiences I hear from my brothers were unusual. Our coaches were good, didn't try to kill a bunch of kids for some sort of pride in themselves.

Usually, it's the farto parents you gotta watch out for.

[Shawnee123]

Farto parents are no worse than Burpo parents.

[squirell nutkin]

...in accordance with the prophecy.

[Sundae]

In school I was on the 2nd team in netball.
I was furious - I should have been on the 1st team, but the best player in the team (in the school!) played in MY position, so I was relegated to reserve for the important matches, and only guaranteed a place when other 2nd teams were available to play.

One game, we were being trounced by another team. At half time we found out (I don't remember how) that the school we were playing only had one team. We were playing their 1st team! No wonder we were losing. Pretty much all of us gave up at that point. Of course I didn't, I came back stronger, harder, better in order to improve myself... No, sorry. I sulked and gave up as much or even more than the rest of them.

The minibus drive home was one of the worst trips of my life. To this date I can raise a blush just thinking about the talk we got from our coach. And she was right. SHAME ON US for our behaviour. It wasn't quite the turnaround that a Hollywood story would provide, but from that day on there was a definite change in team morale and determination, and in general the more pressure we were under the better we performed from then on.

Generalising here, I think there is an endemic attitude in children to give up on things you are not good at. Exceptional children learn to discipline themselves, to be their own coaches, to strive to succeed. But the majority - like me - need to be taught how to fight against the odds. You don't have to teach children "It's not the winning it's the taking part" you just need to teach them "It's not the winning it's giving it your complete all, especially when you're losing".

That's what I think anyway.
And this silly ruling (OT) is wrong.

[classicman]

It started with a basketball game in 1993. There were two fourth-grade classes in my son's elementary school, and each fielded an eight-player team in an after-school sports league. Both teams were good. My son's team went undefeated during the regular season. His best friend -- we'll call him Jay -- played on the other team, which lost just one game. Eventually, in the post-season playoffs, the two teams were scheduled to face each other for the first time all season in the championship game.

A few days before the game, Jay's father called me. He and the other parents of his son's team were "very, very concerned." Even alarmed. Apparently, as the championship game neared, the boys were doing a lot trash-talking at each other. Surely we could all agree that the real reason for the competition was to teach the boys cooperation and sportsmanship. Playing the game would mean one of the teams would lose, which would lead the winning team to "bragging rights in the schoolyard." And that would not be healthy. It would undermine the real lessons to be learned about self-esteem and mutual respect.

He dwelled on these points for a while, finally landing heavily on the notion that this was a wonderful opportunity for us, as parents, to "frame the situation as a teaching moment." Eventually, he got to the money point: He and the other parents of Jay's team wanted to cancel the championship game. After all, we could all agree that both teams were already winners, right?

Initially, I was nonplussed. But I heard myself saying something like, "You're way over-complicating this. The purpose of playing the game is to win it. And by the way, the winning team has earned bragging rights."

As it happened, the two teams fell out along socioeconomic lines. Most of the parents from the other team were professors at the nearby state university, with a couple of doctors as well. Their coach was a well-published sociologist; Jay's father taught psychology. Our coach was a private detective with a scar on his face, a reminder of a knife fight he had had in Mexico. One of our team's parents was a real estate broker, another a chef; one sold insurance, one was a building inspector.

Fast forward two nights to a meeting at my house. Our living room was large enough to accommodate all 32 parents, 16 from each team. The coach of Jay's team presented the same pitch I had heard from Jay's father about our obligation as parents to frame the situation into a teaching moment that emphasized sportsmanship. One of our parents responded that sportsmanship is only possible if there's a sport to begin with. One of theirs said something about helping the children to build healthy self-esteem. One of ours responded that being perceived as too chicken to play the game wasn't likely to build a whole lot of self-esteem in anybody. One of theirs raised the issue of trophies, suggesting that if the game were played, then every player should receive the same trophy. One of ours said sure, trophies for all, as long as they were marked champion and runner-up and given to the right kids.

My favorite comment came from the real estate broker. He said that for him, after listening to all of the arguments pro and con, failing to play the game just seemed unnatural.

I thought I was a good liberal. Always voted Democrat. Felt a little smug around conservatives. My father served in World War II and loved our country, but he also was a liberal professor who opposed the Viet Nam war, organized teach-ins, and sponsored radical groups on various campuses. During my high school years, our apartment featured a glossy black wall with over-sized posters of Leon Trotsky and Ho Chi Minh. But at that meeting, my liberal pedigree buckled permanently under the condescension from the parents of the other team. (The professors spoke to us as though we were being scolded in the principal's office.) The attempt to manufacture individual self-esteem through group actions, to engineer an equality of outcome based on "fairness" rather than achievement, seemed like an effort to feminize young boys.

By the end of the meeting, it was clear what was really happening. This was a head-to-head confrontation between liberal and conservative values. In my new found home in the conservative camp, I was not offended by the liberal arguments -- that felt a little too like something a liberal might feel. I was just disgusted.

The vote split down party lines. Sixteen for playing, sixteen against. My vote to play was also a way to honor my father. Yes, he was a liberal -- but an old-fashioned one. As center for the St. Paul Central football team, he too would have voted to play the game. And in the end, the game was played. We forced their hand by vowing to show up. Whatever they decided, we promised to be there ready to play. But in the interest of good will, we agreed to forgo trophies.

It was a good game. As I expected, my son's team won going away. Afterward we all went out for pizza. The parents spoke through frozen smiles. The kids had a great, noisy time. The boys did not feel a need for trophies, and there was a little trash-talking. The outcome did not seem to bother anybody except maybe some of the parents. Seventeen years later, my son and Jay are still friends. Through the years they played a lot of pickup games.

Link

[lookout123]

Great find Classic. Even removing the political applications of the story it is a very accurate description of parenting today.

[monster]

We don't all have to parent in the same way to be good parents. I find myself somewhere in the middle of the two extremes here, but thinking about it, society needs some super-aggressive/competitive people, some bigger-picture team players and some whose competitiveness depends on the scenario. Just like it is now. Otherwise we'd just be breeding a generation of automatons and humanity dies.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by lookout123

Great find Classic. Even removing the political applications of the story it is a very accurate description of parenting today.

The political aspect is bullshit. It might be an accurate observation in this instance, but the fact is

Originally Posted by monster

...society

has

Originally Posted by monster

some super-aggressive/competitive people, some bigger-picture team players and some whose competitiveness depends on the scenario...

IMHO, this has little to do with political affiliation.

[monster]

did I say it did?

[Undertoad]

This story falls along class boundaries, working class versus upper-middle class, not political boundaries.