Are High Scores In High School Sports Unsportsmanlike?

The call for sportsmanship after another blowout game is just getting ridiculous. This time a high school defeated another team 63-0 in football. The cause of commotion is based on the fact that the quarterback threw nine touchdowns.

A week or two ago there was another headline over another high school that defeated a team 83-0.

For basketball there was a team that won 100-0 and it cost a coach their job.

When is reality going to set in for people? Life is not fair, life isn't about what you feel is supposed to happen, etc...

Do people really believe that games regardless of sports aren't going to have blowouts? Heck it happens in the professional sports as well a blowout loss. What happens to those teams? They get trashed in the media for their lack of effort, lack of heart, etc...

Yet, when it's a high school team, parents, schools, and even the media want to call it bad sportsmanship and make a huge deal out of something that isn't that big of a deal in the first place.

Let's take a real world example. You're looking for a job and you hand in your resume. You show that you're qualified for the job and you may have even the most experience and the most impressive resume, but you don't get the job.

Why? Maybe because there was a spelling error on the resume or maybe it's because it just happened to be that one of the applicants had a reference that vouched for him and he may have had the qualifications, but did not have the experience that you offered. Is that fair? No, but it's life.

When you play a sport there's always a risk of a team blowing another team out and there's always a chance that your team could blow out another team.

In basketball what should happen when a team empties the bench and is up by 40 plus points with a lot of time remaining? Are they supposed to just shoot three-pointers? Do they just stop playing altogether or miss on purpose? Should they travel? Get shot clock violations?

That doesn't look good either.

From what I've read about baseball there's a mercy rule in place, but teams have the option of allowing it or not allowing it.

When you're talking about football I think this is the most dangerous situation. In football you absolutely cannot tell your team to go easy because that's when injuries happen.

The clock is already running and even though people want to say an 83-0 drubbing or a 63-0 victory is overstepping the bounds, it allows for players who wouldn't normally see action a chance to get some playing time.

From what I read about the most recent case, the opposing coach whose team lost didn't think that the team did anything wrong. He even stated how he felt it was good that everyone on the team got playing time.

Most importantly, where is the line that's drawn that's bad sportsmanship or not? I can understand in basketball if the team that is up big just keeps on dunking and showboating then yes that's a problem.

A basketball team that puts in players that don't see very many minutes, should they be penalized for winning by a large margin even though there are players that wouldn't likely appear in a game unless there was an injury or foul trouble?

Baseball, the same thing applies; what if the bench players got to see some time?

In football; the second and third string sees action?

You could make the arguments for any other sports as well.

It is time to stop blowing these types of games out of proportion especially in the media. No coach should be fired if their team wins by a wide margin. The opposing team moves on and so does the winning team. It's just one game and in the grand scheme of life one lopsided loss isn't that big of a deal.

Again the only exception to the rule though is if a team is showboating, taunting, etc...Then you can make the case for termination of the coach of that team.