'No Mercy': School Basketball Coach Suspended After His Team Won By Too Many Points
If your team wins a basketball game convincingly - say by 88 points - even a performance as such might not be the best thing for you as a coach, as Jason Kirck found out the hard way.
www.indiatimes.com
If your team wins a basketball game convincingly - say by 88 points - even a performance as such might not be the best thing for you as a coach, as Jason Kirck found out the hard way.
Kirck was suspended after his team defeated another school by a huge margin, embarrassing them in the process, The Hill reported.
The win, a drubbing by all means, was deemed to be unsportsmanlike by the school and coach Kirck was suspended for one match.
Sacred Heart Academy suspended coach Jason Kirck after the 92-4 victory over Lyman Hall on January 3 in US' Connecticut and issued an apology, the Associated Press reported.
“Sacred Heart Academy values the lessons taught and cultivated through athletic participation including ethical and responsible behavior, leadership and strength of character and respect for one’s opponents,” Sister Sheila O’Neill, the school's president, wrote.
“Sacred Heart Academy Administration and Athletics are deeply remorseful for the manner through with the outcome of the game was achieved," she added.
Tom Lipka, the coach of Lyman Hall, told the Hartford Courant that the Kirck’s team “showed no mercy throughout.”
“Sacred Heart pressed for most of the first half then called it off and went into a tight man-to-man defense trying to get steals,” Lipka said.
“They fast-breaked the entire game right to the end. They never went into a zone and continued to push the ball up the court and shoot threes whenever they could,” he continued. “They showed no mercy throughout.”
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which oversees high school sports in the state, said it runs a program called “Class Act” which teaches coaches to be aware of the competitive balance in games and manage to score “in a manner that is sportsmanlike and respectful of opponents.”
Sacred Heart is not among the schools that have participated in that program, the organization said, as per AP.
I heard about this on a podcast and when I searched it on google, I actually got links to a different story as well - this kind of thing has apparently happened before:
HS coach given 2-game ban after 161-2 win
A Southern California high school basketball coach has been suspended after his team won a game 161-2, one of the most lopsided scores in state history.
www.espn.com.au
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- A Southern California high school basketball coach has been suspended and faces accusations of mercilessly running up the score after his team won a game 161-2, one of the most lopsided scores in state history.
Arroyo Valley High girls' coach Michael Anderson was suspended for two games after the victory last week against Bloomington High.
Anderson said that he wasn't trying to run up the score or embarrass the opposition. His team had won four previous games by at least 70 points, and Bloomington had already lost a game by 91.
"The game just got away from me," Anderson told the San Bernardino Sun on Friday. "I didn't play any starters in the second half. I didn't expect them to be that bad. I'm not trying to embarrass anybody."
He says if he had it to do again, he'd have played only reserves after the first quarter, or, "I wouldn't play the game at all."
But Bloomington coach Dale Chung says Arroyo Valley used a full-court press for the entire first half to lead 104-1 at halftime.
"People shouldn't feel sorry for my team," Chung said. "They should feel sorry for his team, which isn't learning the game the right way."
Anderson has served one game of the suspension, a game his team won 80-19 with his son Nick at the helm. He'll return after sitting out one more.
"He's a great X's and O's coach," Chung said. "Ethically? Not so much. He knows what he did was wrong."
You couldn't make it up.