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Sportsmanship question

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bucknut11

bucknut11

Defense still wins Championships
At the county cross country championship meet yesterday, one of the schools came in ranked #2 in the state, defending state champions returning most of their runners, and overwhelmingly the favorites. Supremely confident they already had the victory before the meet started, the coach decided to not run the varsity team. Instead, he pulled all of his top runners and put in the JVs. The JV team went on to win the meet, by a convincing margin. He did not do this on the girls side (even though they're #3 in the state) because they "didn't have enough depth."

I personally saw this as a slap in the face to all of the opposing schools at the meet. Put your best in, let them run, and win gracefully. Don't remind everyone how much better you are.

I see this as if Texas would've sat their starters against LaLa the week before they played us. LaLa knew they were gonna get killed going into the game, but I think they would've felt greatly disrespected had the 'Horns pulled a stunt similar to this.

Any thoughts?
 
Not sure how to respond to this one, I see both sides of this issue.

I see your side as he's rubbing your noses in it by illustrating to you how superior his team is.

On the other hand, it's the other teams fault that they can't compete with this team.

I guess I feel that the opposing teams should be embarrassed that they got beat by a JV team and that they need to work harder to compete.
 
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I don't see it as a slap in the face to the opposition at all. Obviously the coach knew he could win without his best runners (seeing as they did), so why risk injury to his top athletes and risk their availability for more challenging events?

If the opposition wants respect, then they should get fuckin' good enough to not be beat by someone else's subs...simple as that.
 
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I have no problem whatsoever with the scene you report.

As a young fella the school I attended routinely creamed all-comers in cross-country. The running coach (known affectionately as "lads" - guess how he started each sentence) would often hold out leading runners if the opposition's weakness allowed that. This rested the top runners for a more critical meet on the schedule the following week.

The fact that this cat pulled all his varsity and ran only his JV shows his school might have been able to run against mine in their day.

Frankly, I have to respect both their coaching and the squad depth they demonstrated. Sorry you lost, but that's life.
 
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Thanks for the input guys. I didn't know if I was thinking right or not. It's certainly a thing of awe to see them be that dominant and they should be commended for that, but something still strikes me as wrong about what they did.

Sorry you lost, but that's life.
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I graduated from the winning school a few years ago. If we're keeping score, I guess that means I won.
 
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I don't see anything wrong with the original scenario, but it's probably all a matter of perspective. You could view it as "He's rubbing their superiority in our faces by kicking our asses with his JVs" or from the other side "I think I'll keep this competitive and give my JVs some experience at the Varsity level" or "There is no need to risk injury to my Varsity at this competition when I am pretty sure that my JVs can handle this" or "any number of scenarios". All a matter of perspective in my opinion. Bottom line is that the coach got the W, got the JVs some great experience, and preserved his Varsity for future competition. It may seem as a slap in the face to the losing team, but they should just use it as motivation for improvement.
 
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i think that in a sport like track, which has far less injury risks than other sports, he probably should have just ran his starters. Not to mention im sure the JV guys were glad to get some time in. But it also all depends on how he presented himself and his team. If he came in pretty cocky and unsportsmanlike, then obviously its not right. But if he could explain himself about his decision, then why not, its his team.
 
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The other teams should've thanked the coach for TRYING to show a little mercy on the competition by sitting his best runners. He could've ran all his studs, and taken bets on how badly his guys would beat everyone else.
 
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