Are We This Fragile?

The Chaminade-Madonna High School football team from Hollywood, FL, has recently come under fire for defeating rival Pompano beach 83-0. Check out the full story here:

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=989089

This reminds me of a similar story a few months back regarding a girl's basketball team in Texas. Anyway, everyone is wringing their hands because Chaminade-Madonna stomped their opponents...in a football game. Game.

Get this quote from the head coach, Tim Tyrrell - "We did not go into the game looking to score that many points." Really? How many did you intend to score? Just 40? Perhaps 35 would have been better. I think the objective is to score as many as you can. The question of scoring too many ought not to be a factor at all, otherwise the focus will be all wrong. Of course, sportsmanship and good conduct should be followed. But that has nothing to do with how many points you score, and certainly not a subjective, self-imposed limit before the game even begins.

Here's some quick facts. The entire second half was played with backup players, three of the touchdowns came on kickoff returns (should the runner have stopped in the middle of a play?), only one pass was thrown in the second half, and the clock was run continuously with no stops. Sounds to me like coach Tyrrell conducted himself perfectly well as the leader of a football team. This wasn't a counseling session.

Also consider these factors:

1. Just last year, Pompano Beach defeated Chaminade-Madonna.
2. In the second half, should coach Tyrrell have told his replacement players, who don't often get time on the field, not to try hard and do their best?
3. For those who think Tyrrell should have pulled his starters earlier, as a sign of mercy, doing so would hinder their preparation and skill development needed for the rest of the season. Would that be fair?
4. This is a football game. Teams lose. Do you think the morale of the Pompano players would really be any better in they knew their opponents were going at 50%?

We are brought to the point where excellence is embarrassing, not a goal to be achieved. How about some congratulations for the Chaminade-Madonna players for a job well done? They worked hard and performed well, and shouldn't be ashamed. What a bunch of sissies we've become.

In a larger sense, this fragility is deeply troubling. Think of the economic crisis last year. I would rather endure a recession than the Stimulus Bill and all the other garbage - we can survive a recession, and once it's gone it doesn't stick around. The American economy is a robust and marvelous thing, yet we were told we MUST give billions of dollars to failing companies, invest the Federal gov't with strange new powers over our lives, and watch our debt grow exponentially...lest we approach a recession.

This cultural trend will undermine our ability to be resilient, creative, and resourceful. And it starts will telling teenagers that you can't compete to the best of your ability in a sphere that exists solely for the purpose of competition, and, simultaneously, that any loss is inherently a bad thing from which you can never recover.

We grow in adversity. Man up, America.