Although this story struck a nerve, I wasn’t going to write about it because I felt the girls of the Dallas Academy basketball team might want to forget about the whole thing. But now I can’t ignore it.
For those who haven’t heard, the 8-member girls basketball team at Dallas Academy (The White Rock-area school with a focus on teaching students with a variety of special learning needs) got beat 100-0 by The Covenant School in a recent game.
It sparked a lot of talk and controversy over the past few days for obvious reasons — or at least I thought the reasons were obvious.
OK, if I must … the reason: It’s a matter of poor sportsmanship, simply. I don’t care who the schools are — parochial, private, public, “special learning” schools, or whatever. (By the way, I know several students at Dallas Academy and they aren’t in any way weak or slow—that is beside the point).
As a parent, I’d be far more embarrassed to be on the 100-point scoring side. In fact, I would have pulled my kid out of the game and said "enough is enough" and explained my views. (Work on drills work on skills. But stop shooting once you’re ahead by 30 or 40 points — that’s the way any of my much loved and respected coaches of the past would’ve handled it, I feel quite sure.)
REALLY. I’m not one of those sissy moms that wants everything to be “fair”. In fact, I come from a very (overly?) competitive family and athletic lifestyle. I’m all about winning and pushing. This, however, is an entirely different deal. The coach of the Covenant team had an opportunity here to teach his girls about sportsmanship and that bullying doesn’t equal strength. I’ve always seen sports as a metaphor for life, and this coach failed miserably at an opportunity to teach a life lesson here.
But when I expressed as such yesterday, not everyone (even some of the Dallas Academy parents) seemed to share my opinion (which really irked me).
Now it seems the Covenant school is making amends. See the public apology and request for forfeit on their website. The head of the school called the event "shameful … embarrassing … and a victory without honor." The quick and humble handling of the matter on his part is impressive. Plus, those girls from Dallas Academy have a great attitude — they showed a lot of spunk and mature perspective through this whole thing.
