Debate High scores = Bad sportsmanship

[Caite]

So I've been seeing more and more stories about one team having a way higher score than the other team. And in most of them people call it bad sportsmanship and one party will end up apologizing for it. Granted some of these are huge scores for the sport.

The way I see it is there shouldn't be no apologizing and I don't see it as bad sportsmanship. You never hear about this in pro sports because they just keep on going. Its not poor sportsmanship that's the name of the game and what the players are paid to do. Although these stories are more from high school I still don't see the difference. Teams are coached differently and if you're going to complain about the score then don't have your team compete. You'll win some and you'll lose some.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/us/inglewood-morningside-high-school-football-game-trnd/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/soccer-o...chool-soccer-77678664cb5f619ed37fdee1c1935630

 

[Nah]

I'm not a sports person, but I always figured that sportsmanship was about the behavior of the people involved and not the score. Like not being an arrogant asshole when you win, taking a loss gracefully instead of acting like a 3 year old, being respectful, etc. Sometimes there's a blowout and one player/team just dominates the other for whatever reason(s).

 

[ReKoil]

So a team being massively better than the other team and whooping their behind is now unsportsmanlike?
Wth even.... 🙄

I see no mention of foul play or cheating or anything like that in the articles. though I did skim through them =p
Just massively outscoring your opponent and being unsportsmanlike have absolutely nothing to do with each other..... 😑

I've been on both ends back when I still played Basketball. Absolutely humiliating your opponent with a high score difference and getting humiliated by another opponent just the same.
Is it humiliating to lose by that much? sure! is it unsportsmanlike? heck no. Those are 2 different things @_@
You're supposed to just try to learn from it and improve yourself....

 

[Hermione Granger]

If you want more context on the Inglewood's game here is an article: https://news.yahoo.com/classless-move-morningside-coach-says-164759203.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

The refs asked Inglewood to run down the clock and refused to do so. Which is probably where the controversial 2 point conversion at the end of the game came in when they were already leading at 104-0 at that point before the conversion. If you want to call that good sportsmanship, go right ahead. I view that as rubbing it in and I agree with Morningside's coach when he said that was a classless move. That is not good sportsmanship right there.

 

[Arcaneum]

If you want more context on the Inglewood's game here is an article: https://news.yahoo.com/classless-move-morningside-coach-says-164759203.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

The refs asked Inglewood to run down the clock and refused to do so. Which is probably where the controversial 2 point conversion at the end of the game came in when they were already leading at 104-0 at that point before the conversion. If you want to call that good sportsmanship, go right ahead. I view that as rubbing it in and I agree with Morningside's coach when he said that was a classless move. That is not good sportsmanship right there.

I agree with this here and I believe this is what the article was moreso highlighting, as opposed to the team facing criticism for… well… winning.

I understand and appreciate that players play, and in some cases (not here it seems though actually as it's HS level) are paid to participate in, these sports and for me therefore yes the team should not face criticism for such a crushing victory. After all, that is partly on the other team to step their game up to make sure it doesn't happen again and they're all there to do the same things: play and win. In some sports, every point does really count because of goal differences settling ties etc, so yes you want to get every point you can even if you are 104 points up.

However, it does cross into bad sportsmanship when you are doing things that are necessary for the sake of showing up the other team, such as the conversion mentioned in the article.

Yes it was something to score more points but then this could have been done in severe better ways and it's just bad taste to force that, especially at something like a high school match where it's not QUITE as important as say a national finals.

It is a very thing line to tread though - I know back when I played basketball if we were in the lead (not quite 104 points up but still) then we would start playing what we called "Beach Ball", where we'd essentially be just passing it around to prevent possession being taken, whilst not scoring. We chose not to score not because we wanted to show off to the other team, but because strategically scoring meant passing possession and therefore giving an opportunity to score against us, so I think it is situational but in this situation, a poor show of sportsmanship and something hopefully they can learn from.

 

[Corrin]

This reminds me so much of Inazuma Eleven: GO where they wanted to even out soccer so they gave out predetermined scores that the teams had to follow or their teams out be taken out.

But anyway, everyone should be able to play the sport they enjoy to their full potential, regardless of skill.