100 ZIP AND YOU'RE FIRED

Although it took place a couple of weeks ago, I still have some very strong feelings about this event. As you probably know, a Texas girls high school basketball game in Dallas ended with a 100-0 score. Covenant, a private Christian school, was the lopsided winner and Dallas Academy, a private school for kids with learning disabilites (LD), was the scoreless victim.

When Micah Grimes, the Covenant coach, was criticized for letting his girls run up the score, he fired back with an e-mail to the Dallas Morning News. Some Covenant administrators had called the score "shameful," but Grimes wrote that he would not apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity." That got coach Grimes fired.

Despite the 100 zip score, Jeremy Civello, the Academy coach, saw the game as a win. "My girls never quit," he said. "They played as hard as they could to the very end. They played with all their hearts at 70-nothing, 80-nothing and 100-nothing. I was really proud of them. That's what I told them after the game."

Did Grimes deserve to be fired? You bet he did! While the Academy girls played "with all their hearts," the Covenant coach and his girls were heartless. Because their opponents were players with disabilities, Grimes and his girls dishonored themselves, as well as their school.

It did not matter that they represented a Christian school. The Christian thing would have been to hold down the score once victory was assured. The Christian thing would have been to let the Academy girls score a few goals. But coach Grimes was merciless and very un-Christian-like by letting his girls run up the socre against some girls with LD. And the Covenant girls are not blameless either. To hell with the coach! Those girls could have practiced some good sportsmanship by slowing the game down on their own.

We reap what we sow. We are too sports crazy. UCLA football coach Red Sanders first said it and legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi immortalized it - "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." In the athletic departments of our colleges and universities, winning trumps learning. That's why many college football players fail to graduate and that's why most college basketball players are borderline illiterates.

Back in 1950, my college football team beat a team from California by more than 70 points. After the game, the other coach rushed over and, livid with rage, screamed at our coach, "You God damn son of a bitch, you just cost me my job!" Unfortunately, that "win at any cost" concept is bound to trickle down to the high school level. Thus we end up with some asshole coach letting his team slaughter a group of kids with LD.