A recent high school game ended in a score of 161-2. No, you're not seeing things. On January 5th, Arroyo Valley High School beat the snot out of Bloomington High School in San Bernadino, Ca. leading to the suspension of Arroyo's coach, Micheal Anderson for two games. His offense, poor sportsmanship. My first thought was how does a team that is clearly more dominant even play a team that can only score two points. Maybe there really needs to be a change in scheduling or maybe the winners could work with loosing teams to help make them better, thus leading to more competition. Mr. Anderson defended the score by pointing out his benching the starters at half time and asking the replacements to take time off the clock. It didn't work, they still beat Bloomington like they stole something, which produced cries from the community of unfairness. Was Coach Anderson wrong, what else could he have done? What would you do? He couldn't stop the game, so the choice he opted for led to only a 159 point difference. At question here, I believe is a question of preserving their opponent's dignity. Notice I didn't say pride. Pride is meant to be broken, but dignity is meant to be cherished. Perhaps once the score reached a 50 point difference, the game could have been called and the guys could have been still able to hold their head up instead of the the public coming to their rescues further embarrassing them. I have to throw two etiquette flags on this play. One on the coach for knowing better and one on the community for pointing it out.
