Bob CollinsA high school team in Texas beat its Fort Worth-area opponent 91-0 under some Friday night lights. So a parent filed a bullying complaint against the coaches of the victorious squad.
The Aledo school district superintendent said he will treat the allegations as he would any other bullying charge. “We have to do an investigation and make sure there’s no legitimacy to it,” giving a perhaps-unintended glimpse into how seriously he considers other bullying allegations.
There was nothing unfair about the score, he said, “other than the fact that our players were better than their players.”
“I would never ask our kids not to play hard,” Aledo football coach Tim Buchanan told a local TV station. “I would never tell them, ‘Go out and let them score’. That’s not what you want to teach kids.”
It’s not possible for me to read this story without thinking of my favorite all-time NewsCut effort. It was 2010, when the Wrenshall, Minn., girl’s basketball squad made national news for losing 65-0.
I went to meet them and asked them whether they wish other teams would take it easy on them?
“We had one school that wanted our varsity to play their JV and our JV to play their junior high … that wasn’t going to happen because we’re going to play at the level we’re at,” the team’s co-captain said.
They weren’t a particularly good team, and most of the kids have probably graduated and gone on to bigger things now. Losing wasn’t any fun, but if the losing squad in Texas is as smart and mature as the kids in Wrenshall were, then high school sports is doing what it’s ultimately supposed to do.
