March Madness Indeed

Hello sports fans. It’s Sunday and spring has sprung! One sure hint that spring is here is the annual frustration that is March Madness. Now I could be all macho and come on here and tell you I am doing great in my bracket contest in my league , and that I had the results planned all along, but I would be lying. The truth is, I am indeed in first place, but I have no idea what I’m doing.  (UPDATE) As sure as I had this planned for a nice article, I fell in to second place. At any rate, I’m certain this makes the other 105 other people with brackets in my league go insane. Oh well, it’s fun to win when you have no idea what’s going on.

Happy birthday today to Cousin Bill Harris in Memphis Tennessee. Hope you and yours have an awesome day today and get ready for me to come visit in about a month. I’m starting to make plans now.

Can’t wait to go see all my new found Tennessee relatives and go see Beall Street! Have a great day peoples.

Dallas Academy Bulldogs gain national attention

I’m pretty sure everyone knows this story by now. Dallas Academy girls basketball team loses a game to Dallas Covenant 100-0. That in itself is a pretty amazing story considering how it got Christian parents from two different schools into a pretty heavy discussion about sportsmanship and what should have been done about it. It’s almost like a discussion on politics. And oh by the way, I kind of subscribe to my mom’s old idea of never discussing religion or politics in public, but then I wouldn’t be writing this article right now if I did (didn’t) do that now would I?

At any rate, the story got loads of attention, and the bottom line is now the Dallas Morning News is taking full credit that they are the publication responsible for this amazing story that was brought to light. That’s ok, I’m just a blogger and I’m not sure how all of the media hype works anyway. But in this day of crunching numbers and newspapers scratching to exist in today’s economy, I understand it when they need to pat themselves on their backs. But the truth of the matter is, the reason the story became so popular is because the story was on Deadspin.com . And let me just take a moment to thank Rick Chandler, the Associate Editor of Deadspin for his putting the story up at Deadspin to begin with. Deadspin is a great blog and was considerate enough to post this story from my blog and it also referenced the Dallas Morning News story which people clicked to read about anyway. That’s fine with me, my blog got a tremendous amount of hits and I guess everyone can come away happy, but I do think the story got publicity and national attention because of Deadspin.

The story unfolded on Jan. 13, when The Covenant School’s team overwhelmed Dallas Academy, 100-0, keeping the pressure on until it reached 100 points. The game was played in an old North Dallas gym with few fans other than parents as witnesses. No media were present. But the score appeared in The Dallas Morning News the following day. It wasn’t until a story about the game appeared in The News that the world took notice.

Well, I congratulate the Dallas Morning News, but I still contend the story got national attention because of Deadspin, but that’s ok, the story got national interest and it really got people to thinking about sports and what’s fair, even in a girls basketball league. I’ll go back to writing now and see if I can find another story to go national.

 

Dallas Academy Bulldogs, 100-0 Losers, Gain National Attention (Dallas Morning News)

Principal of School That Administered 100-0 Beating Offers to Forfeit the Win (Deadspin)

What’s the real lesson here?

Just reading a story in the Dallas Morning News where a girls high school basketball team beat another 100-0.

The final score of the high school girls basketball game was 100-0, and his team had the nothing. Still, a week later, Dallas Academy Athletic Director Jeremy Civello was chalking up the game in the win column.

“My girls never quit,” he said. “They played as hard as they could to the very end. They played with all their hearts at 70-nothing, 80-nothing and 100-nothing. I was really proud of them. That’s what I told them after the game.”

The game took place Jan. 13, on the road, against The Covenant School. Civello didn’t expect his girls to win. He never really does. His girls haven’t won a game in his four seasons at the White Rock Lake-area school, renowned for its work with students with a variety of learning problems. In most games, they haven’t come close.

Here’s my question. Why is this a problem? It’s sports. It’s life. I understand there may be fewer girls in this school than others, but what’s the problem here? Before you know it, this team is going to file a grievance with the Texas Education Agency and probably be granted a 50 point waiver for every game. Let the kids play ball without the interference of adults.

No word on how many points Savannah Smith of The Covenant School scored, but I would imagine it was massive based on this video.

 

Academy Basketball Coach Sees Win in 100-0 loss (DMN)