You Can't Avoid Boyd - You Play to Win the Game

You Play to Win the Game

Before I delve into my weekly post, I’d like to congratulate Pat Hennessy for the creation of this blog. We recently read the 100^th HJFHS post (I knew there was no chance he’d let me write it since Pat is a glory hog) and he made sure this blog kept running along despite this idea starting out as a joke. Sure, he might not post as frequently, and his content might be watered down, and his hair might be significantly grayer, but damn it, he runs a good blog overall. I’m glad I can help with my weekly contribution (This is my 37^th post). I’d also like to thank our non-gentile contributor, Josh, for taking time out of his busy schedule of shotgunning Iron City Light and fingering married chicks to write that one post back in the day. Anyway, back to my regular scheduled post….

Sportsmanship has been a hot topic in the world of sports lately. Whether it is DeSean Jackson costing his team 50 yards by taunting the Giants about a month ago or the Detroit Lions losing their composure in New Orleans last week, athletes are showing a lack of sportsmanship. My favorite showing thus far is when Brandon Jacobs of the NY Giants celebrated a touchdown run by dancing for about 90 seconds before the ref told him to stop. I should point out the Giants were down 21-3 before his score and were completely outplayed at that point. I am glad Jacobs felt the need to celebrate excessively. I have no issue with a guy celebrating a big play as long as it is appropriate. A big touchdown in a close game; dance it up. A touchdown while you’re getting blown out; hand the ball to the ref and go to the sideline unnoticed. I am going to tackle two stories that were in the news recently.

In early November during a junior high preseason basketball tournament in Kentucky, Pikeville MS beat Kimper MS 100-2. Pikeville is in a pretty big school district and features kids that play on the AAU circuit while Kimper only has 180 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. This game was quickly forgotten until some media outlets were reporting the Pikeville school district was looking into forfeiting the rest of the junior high season over this lack of sportsmanship. There were accusations of running up the score despite Pikeville’s coach removing his starters after the first two minutes and encouraging his team to play a softer defense for the entire 2^nd half as they were leading 70-0. Unfortunately, Kimper could not score until a last second lay-in prevented them from being shutout. When I first heard this story, I was shocked. Despite the one-sided score, it seems Pikeville played with great sportsmanship. They called off the dogs early, softened their defense, and did not run up the score. I was glad to hear that the superintendent said rumors of forfeiting the season were completely false. While they did investigate if the score was run up, they found nothing to indicate it. I’ll keep you posted when these two schools meet again in the regular season

LSU finished the regular season 12-0 but dealt with sportsmanship issues along the finish. While beating Ole Miss 52-3, LSU’s coach Les Miles decided to have his offense take a knee midway through the 4^th quarter, running out some of the clock. While some people saw this as a way to finish the game without running up the score, others viewed it as a slap in the face. You kneel at the very end of the game, not with six minutes left. They thought Miles showed poor sportsmanship. Fast forward a week later when LSU took on Arkansas. With LSU up 38-17, they took possession with good field position and ran their normal offense before settling for a field goal. However, Arkansas’ coach Bobby Petrino viewed it as running up the score and was caught cursing out Miles from his sideline. Afterwards, Petrino pulled away quickly after the post-game handshake. I feel LSU did the right thing in both instances, especially after hearing complaints about the Ole Miss game. If anyone showed poor sportsmanship, it was Petrino. If you don’t want LSU kicking field goals on you late in the game, have your defense nut up and stop them. They ran basic pass and run plays. They didn’t run any trick plays. They could have been stopped. They weren’t.

I think there is a lot of good sportsmanship in sports, but I know there are too many poor examples as well. I know I will continue to see players flip the ball to the ref before crossing the goal line. I know certain teams will continue to run up the score (I’m looking at you Bill Belichick) when possible. I know this will continue and any pleas I make will fall upon deaf ears. However, we don’t need to see the media make examples out of nothing, like Pikeville and LSU. There is enough out there to report about without making mountains out of molehills.

           -Written by Marcus Boyd