After this lopsided game, a bullying complaint was filed to the school district, which brought this game more to light. 
The game involved Aledo and Western Hills High Schools in Texas, where Aledo is ranked #1 in Texas 4A football. Even thought the score was 56-0 at half time, even though Aledo scored one of out every three times they touched the ball, there was no apparent animosity between the players or the fans. In fact, in the complaint, which was not registered against the players but the Aledo coaches, the person filing the complaint said the Aledo players showed great sportsmanship.
Here are some of the highlights of the interview between Cary Chow of ESPN and Tim Buchanan, the Aledo Head Coach.
“The allegation stated that when we had the game in hand, we should have told our players to ease up and not play so hard. That’s not really what you do in athletics.”“
We did some things to keep the score from getting out of hand – we had a running clock and 17 different players either ran, threw or caught the ball.”
When asked about the other coach’s response after the game, Coach Buchanan said the other coach commented, “It should have been a lot worse. You did a good job of not scoring 100!”
Asked if looking back he would do anything differently or would he coach in the same way, Coach Buchanan responded:
“We’ve got a really good football team, ranked #1 in Class 4A and we average 70 points a game. I am not sure we could have done a whole lot to prevent the score from being that way other than take a knee or punting on 1st down. That’s not fair to our kids, who come out and practice.”
The interview ended with Coach Buchanan lamenting,
“To me that’s really one thing that’s going wrong with our society right now. Instead of that parent going to the Head Coach of Western Hills and asking “What do we need to do to keep that from happening again?”, that parent preferred to tell the Aledo Coaching Staff to quit playing so hard. That is not the American way!”
(To seek the full interview, click here.)
I will be honest with you. I liked Coach Buchanan, at least what I heard of him in the interview. I agree with part of his comments about the misdirection of the opposing parent who complained. I applaud his efforts to teach his players good sportsmanship and to keep the score from being even more than 91-0. (Apparently, the Aledo Coaching Staff took a great part of half time trying to “figure out how to tap the offensive brakes without embarrassing Western Hills or hindering his own team’s progress. Buchanan had one thought: “What are we going to do to not score 100?’”.)
My concern is more at the core issues that he brings up in his defense of his and his team’s effort. He says two significant things in the interview that I want to point out:
– “That is not really what you do in athletics” in talking about easing up and not playing so hard
– “That is not the American way” again in speaking about not playing hard
I want to ask Coach Buchanan, “What do you do in athletics?”
I think he would answer something about playing hard. He speaks about playing hard but doesn’t give the obvious end for all this effort – winning. It seems so clear – winning is the ultimate goal. Playing hard, as Coach Buchanan outlines, ultimately gets most of its fuel from that value. How do I know? Listen to how Cary Chow describes Coach Buchanan’s efforts to keep the game from “getting out of hand”:
“But he was also balancing that with the fact that his team is going to start facing tougher competition in the coming weeks and he wants to be sure his starters are used to playing at least some in the second half…Buchanan simplified the playbook…His starters began coming out in the third quarter, some of them having played just 16 snaps.
Buchanan is now trying to focus on preparing his team for the schedule to stiffen and to be fully ready for the playoffs and a shot at a state title.”
While they modified several things, it seems to me that everything the Aledo coaches did in this situation was with winning as the ultimate end in mind – not just this game but in the future. That is a problem that I would love to discuss with Coach Buchanan as I have previously written about here (Winning: A Bad Goal but a Good Desire) and is better and more fully expressed in our resource The Ultimate Question. It is a deeply rooted value in all our athletics. Winning is what athletics are “all about” these days. This value is one of the reasons our sports are broken – at every level, in every sport.
But what about playing hard?
Coach Buchanan’s response about playing hard seems to include a disregard for my opponent, if I am upholding both the spirit of athletics and the “American way.” Again, that troubles me.
While I agree that playing hard is an important part of competition, I would say that there are other important parts as well. As I have illustrated previously, let’s imagine Tim Buchanan has a 10 year old son who is learning to play a sport and asks his dad to compete with him. Would Tim play hard there – squelching every effort of his son’s with his superior size and skill? Would a 21-0 score in basketball or even ping-pong be the goal? If we saw Tim playing with his son this way, would we applaud Tim’s playing hard? I don’t think so. (For more on this, click here for a previous blog on lopsided games.)
I bring this up to show is that competition is more complex than just playing hard.
There are many other issues to consider – one in particular I am advocating here is a concern for my opponent. I know, in doing so, I am going against the tsunami of opinion and effort currently in competition and athletics. We win at all costs. Competition is about striving against our opponents to display our superiority.
But what if we had a different goal than winning where competition was more about striving together than striving against? What if we thought long and hard before the game rather than at half time how to “tap the offensive brakes without embarrassing Western Hills”? What if we were more concerned with the progress toward the many other things that athletics can develop instead of just winning and championships?
If we did, I think we would be on the path to fixing the brokenness in sports.
