Bully?

TechCumberland222-0Last weekend, in Texas, the Aledo High Bearcats beat the dog snot out of the Western Hills Cougars. How bad? The 91-0 score knocked the Western Hills Website offline.

I hate it for the Cougars, but stuff happens. Sometimes you get your butt kicked. Even by teams that are playing second-stringers in the first quarter.

So, how do you deal with it? Well, if you’re a cry-baby parent, you file a complaint accusing the winning team of bullying.

It’s not bullying. It’s football. Of course, I’m from Georgia. That’s the same state where Georgia Tech is located. And Georgia Tech is the team that beat Cumberland 222-0 in a game one time.

Now, in that game, head coach John Heisman (yes, the guy they named the trophy after) was trying to run up the score. Earlier that year (1916), Cumberland used professional players in a baseball game against Tech (Heisman was also the baseball coach, as well as basketball coach), beating the North Avenue school 22-0. Heisman didn’t like that, not one little bit. So, in October, he had the football team run up the score. They stopped at 222 points. Because the game ended.

That’s football. It’s not bullying.

Nobody wants to be on the high school team that got beat 91-0. But nobody wants to have their mommy run call the opposing coach a bully.

Maybe the Western Hills Cougars should file a complaint … against whiny parents.

11 Comments

  1. i’m unclear whether it was mommy or daddy who filed the complaint, but the kid deserves better. it looks like good evidence to support a request for emancipated minor status, should he make one.

  2. Here in South Dakota there is a mercy rule if you are up by 50 points, I believe…used to be 45, at the half the game is over but it still has to go to half time. Where I used to teach, and now the school where my son goes, the games don’t usually go beyond half time because we have a 50+ lead. I have watched the coach pull all but one started and filled the rest of the squad with second stringers and still the score grows so he pulls the second string and send in the third string and they still win…reading the interview with the winning coach it sounds like that is what he was doing but they don’t have a mercy rule. He is correct in stating that you don’t tell them to play at less than their best. What feels worse than getting beat 91-0? Losing a close game, or even winning, but knowing that the other team didn’t respect you enough to play their best even if they were only playing the scrubs against you. These games are actually a bad thing for the winning team. I know that in the two schools I mentioned above it came back to bite them in the playoffs when they suddenly had to play a full game against real opposition. Better to be in a conference/league where you have to earn your victories and go into the playoffs prepared rather than walk in unopposed only to be blindsided.

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  4. I was on a football team once that really stunk. We never won a game and were jubilant if we even got close enough to kick, or should I say try to kick a field goal. We treated first downs like they were touchdowns and just found a way to have fun with it because after al it is just a game.

  5. I attended the University of Tennessee at Martin back in the mid-90s. We we’re not a football power house by any stretch, but we beat a Bethal University team that was in its first season 97-7. We ran the ball up the middle on every play in the second half and even though they knew what was coming, they couldn’t stop it.

    What would have been worse than getting beat my 90? Having a football game called by a mercy rule.

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