The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference has the right target but the wrong weapon.
The CIAC recently decided that a football coach whose team defeats an opponent by more than 50 points must sit out the following game. This is an overly simplistic solution, but at least it’s focusing attention in the right direction.
We all share responsibility when it comes to sportsmanship, but when it comes to blowouts, the coach makes the difference. Most coaches understand there’s no triumph in a 65-0 avalanche in which the winner could have held down the score.
Amazingly, though, too many coaches still find happiness in running it up. They’re the ones who play their starters way too long in a blowout, the ones pressing in basketball or passing in football in the fourth quarter instead of rewarding their substitutes and slowing things down.
These coaches may be working on tactics for upcoming games. They may be trying to shatter opposing players’ confidence with an eye toward a future meeting. Maybe they simply like rubbing it in.
Regular-season routs come in a steady trickle, and the IHSA’s state tournament seeding system inevitably produces mismatches as well. This spring in softball, about a dozen state series games have produced victory margins of at least 20 runs. Last fall 10 football playoff games had margins of 48 points or more.
Illinois High School Association Executive Director Marty Hickman said a Connecticut-style rule is not under consideration here but added he sees some merit in it.
“I hate to think we have to legislate that kind of stuff, but clearly we do,” Hickman said of minimizing blowouts. “I think it’s a huge problem.
“Every time I see a team score 100 points in a basketball game and somebody else has 14 and someone scored 58 points, I shake my head and wonder what people are thinking. It seems one of those things you shouldn’t have to tell people, `You shouldn’t do that.’
“I don’t have the answer,” he added with a sad chuckle. “Maybe Connecticut does. I don’t.”
The IHSA has so-called mercy rules in several sports, including football, baseball and softball. Its board of directors will consider instituting one in soccer at its June 12 meeting.
In football, once a team gets a 40-point lead after halftime, the clock runs continuously for the rest of the game. The CIAC rejected a similar rule because shortening the game robbed substitutes of playing time.
Illinois had a running-clock rule during the 2004-05 basketball regular season but currently limits it to regular-season tournaments before Feb 1. because of the playing-time issue.
This illustrates there is no simple solution when it comes to routs and mercy rules. A coach can insult an opposing team almost as much by how he holds the score down as he would by running it up.
You don’t want to make opposing kids feel too much like charity cases or tell your substitutes they can’t play hard, so letting the losing team score too easily is likely a bad idea. So is making too obvious an effort not to score when you are way ahead.
You don’t, in other words, want to tell a substitute to miss shots on purpose or fall down at the 5-yard line while running all alone for an apparent touchdown.
The Connecticut rule is misguided in part because it may produce such awkward moments. If a football team takes a 53-point lead next fall, putting its coach in danger of a suspension, the ensuing kickoff return may magically go all the way for a touchdown, fooling no one.
Another of the rule’s weaknesses is that occasionally two teams may be so mismatched that a mammoth rout is all but unavoidable.
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Classy coaches, however, usually can keep things from getting too far out of hand. In basketball you could call off the press, play a soft zone defense, pass the ball for a minute or so and take only outside shots. In soccer you could mix up positions and try to score on headers only and not at all from a few yards of the goal.
Coaches also can hold out a couple of star players or bring players up from the sophomore or junior varsity team for subbing purposes when a blowout is virtually certain.
Athletic directors should encourage such tactics by discussing them regularly with coaches.
“It’s important to have those kinds of conversations,” New Trier athletic director Jim Bloch said. “That falls under sportsmanship and treating people with dignity and class.
“These are tough conversations to have. It’s tough to tell kids not to score when they haven’t had a lot of playing time and they practice so hard.
“You don’t want to demean people, and at the same time it’s an athletic event. You do the best you can to make it manageable.”
Schools can reduce blowouts by not scheduling non-conference opponents who are too strong or too weak.
League and state tournament mismatches can’t be avoided. In those cases it should come down to courtesy, common sense and prudent mercy rules, not suspensions.
“There should be internal controls,” Bloch said. “You shouldn’t need some sort of punishment.”
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