On the topic of sporting behaviour

[narcasse]

This post on childfree seems to have stirred up quite a kafuffle over ‘sporting’ behaviour which I personally find a little bizarre. The gist of it is that one American high school basketball team beat another quite dramatically which would usually be cause for celebration but because the losing school team didn’t score at all and were from a school that boasts of its small class sizes and specializes in teaching students struggling with "learning differences," such as short attention spans or dyslexia the winners are now forfeiting their victory.

The argument being made is that the winning team’s conduct was unbecoming because they were so clearly winning and carried on winning, whereas instead they should have stopped somehow. There’s talk in the comments of substituting players from the second or third teams to attempt to balance out matters but, and I may of course be wrong, this flies in the face of everything I’ve ever been taught about schools sports. Maybe it’s different in America and the ethos that everybody has to win prevails but here in the UK the point was to win and win hard. If you walked off the pitch with a massive point difference between you and the losing team you were the victor and that was that. Even in inter-House games the point was to win. It didn’t matter that you might have friends on the other House team you were playing: the point was to pound them into the dirt anyway. In fact you played just that bit harder because half the opposition were your mates who’d tease you mercilessly about a loss in the next day’s classes. The point was to win and there was no reason for you to be on the team if you thought otherwise.

Of course the point the article and following discussion make is that the losing team had ‘learning differences’ as it’s so euphemistically put which could be a sizable handicap in such a game but again the issue isn’t so much the handicap but rather the fact that the school chose to play against a team without a similar handicap. Which suggests to me that they were fully aware of what they were going into. Or that those disabilities weren’t judged to be all that limiting in the context of a basketball game. Either way when the game was set up the potential handicap of one team wasn’t seen to be problem; if it had been then presumably they’d have made other arrangements. Of course I am presuming that the school fielding such a team were fully versed in their limitations due to disabilities because if they weren’t then that’s a whole other kettle of fish and a worse one too.

So if the disabilities of one team weren’t judged to hamper them at all in a match they should have had an equal chance at winning. Which leads me to wonder if it was simply the case, as in all sporting competitions, that the other team played the better game. After which point other parties, not the players themselves, started to kick up a fuss. Because that’s what it looks like. And if that’s the case then it’s a terrible message to be sending to two sets of schoolgirls, namely that on one side they should be ashamed of winning and on the other that they’re not good enough to compete with non-disabled individuals which is why the world has to make allowances for them. And the fault for that, I suspect rests squarely with the adults involved in the situation and not either of the teams.

Comments

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

Shallow, sloppy reporting makes me itch. When I first watched it on MSNBC, I had all kinds of questions. The reporter didn't bother to do any digging, but just stuck to the inflammatory tale of a crushing loss and the unorthodox, not particularly helpful reaction of the winners.

It isn't usual for teachers to set up their teams for defeat so badly. Occasional losses in order to motivate students are okay, but crushing defeats? No.

Could it be that, in order to secure funds for an athletic program at all--since districts vary on these things--the school was forced to send its unfit athletes into a round-robin style of competition?

This was a story without enough meta.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

There definitely does seem to be a good deal missing from the story. And I do wonder if your theory of having to compete to secure funds is correct. If that’s the case it’s terrible but as you say this is definitely a story lacking pertinent information.