It seems every basketball season, several of these stories pop-up. In this particular story, the score in a women’s high school basketball game in Bloomington, IN was 107-2. Ouch!
As you can imagine, there’s a lot of outrage over this score. It’s easy to cry out things like, “Why didn’t the winning team’s coach just tell the kids not to shoot anymore?” In this particular situation, the coach did think of that but felt as if it would be more embarrassing.
The question of how to handle a blowout as a winning coach is relevant at almost any level of any sport. So, if you have a Christian worldview as a coach, how should you handle it?
Should you tell your players not to shoot any more? Is this just choosing the lesser of two evils? Can you appropriately honor and glorify God by not trying your hardest?
Is it glorifying to God to continue to run up the score? If so, how? How do Biblical attributes like compassion and mercy fit into this situation?
As you can see, I don’ think there are any easy answers. What do you say though? What strategies have you used? What Biblical framework do you use to justify these strategies?
