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Bruce Pratt of Swanville is a writer, part-time instructor at the University of Maine and a former multi-sport coach at John Bapst Memorial High School. He is also a contributor to the “Downtown with Rich Kimball” show on WZON.
No one wants to see a rout in high school sports, unless of course fans feel it is payback for having been on the other end of a terribly lopsided score — you know the eye-for-an-eye attitude that ends up leaving us blind.
However, routs happen, and the winning team and its coaches are not always to blame.
I have been on both sides of blowouts. Some of this is due to long established though not codified protocols. Some football teams believe they have the right to play all their starters for the first half of a game no matter the score. The logic is that those players have earned the right to play. That is commonly extended to the first possession of the second half or until the losing side “surrenders” by inserting its “seconds.” I coached a football team that had no seconds, and when I did not send out younger, smaller, inexperienced players against a juggernaut, I was told it was my fault the score was run up on my team.
I thought that wrong then and still do, but that’s only one part of the reality of romps. You can’t tell a basketball player not to make a steal, a running back in the clear to go out of bounds. You can’t ask a softball or baseball player to strike out, a tennis player to double fault on purpose. No hockey player should not try to score on a breakaway.
Simply stated, coaches do not control every aspect of the game.
The Maine Principals’ Association works very hard to make fair class assignments. I served as the state ski coaches liaison to the association during a reclassification year. While I often clashed with it on other matters, I have only praise for the way that organization made its classification changes. The ability to petition up or down is a local call, and if a district makes a mistake, the number of games decided early may well increase. Again that is not a coach’s decision.
I have been on the other side as well. As the head track-and-field coach at John Bapst, my girls team won nine PVC Small School Championships, and eight Class C State Championships in a 10-year period. If I had a dollar for every time I was accused of loading up an event or was asked why I didn’t scratch some kids when we were far ahead, I’d be a very rich man.
The point here is simple. Kids practice all week and compete in regular season and league meets with the goal of qualifying for the state meet. When they do that, they deserve the chance to compete in every and any event for which they qualified.
Creating class- and league-wide competitive balance is a very difficult chore. Changing demographics, year-to-year fluctuations in enrollment, changes in coaching staffs, key players moving to other districts or choosing to attend prep schools are but a few of the factors that can change a perennially strong program into a weak one.
In the end, coaches should, and I believe most do, think of the young people playing these sports. What are the values we want them to take away when their sports careers are over? I believe we learn when we win and when we lose. The question is what do we take from each experience? Being trounced is never a good thing, but getting up from that kind of defeat can be.
