Dallas team suffers a 100-point loss

If you grew up playing organized sports, you can probably relate to experiencing the ultimate highs and lows of competition.

Last week, a high school girl's basketball team in Dallas experienced the ultimate low: an embarrassing, 100-0 defeat.

Dallas Academy's loss was so embarrassing that The Covenant School apologized for its dominant performance, going so far as to seek a forfeit, which would overturn their win.

But on Sunday, Covenant took matters a step further when it fired Head Coach Micah Grimes after he sent an e-mail to the Dallas Morning News, refusing to apologize for his team's win.

Witnesses of the drubbing maintain that Covenant, a private Christian school, applied full court pressure and shot 3-pointers until the team reached 100 points with four minutes to play in the game.

In a statement released on Covenant's school Web site, Kyle Queal, head of school at Covenant, called the win "shameful," saying "a victory without honor is a great loss."

Some might be wondering how a high school team can manage to play an entire game without scoring a single point.

You would think at some point in the game, a Dallas Academy player would somehow find themselves wide open under the basket or get fouled and make a free throw.

No. There were no "gimmes" to be had in this game. Thirty-two minutes played and zero points scored.

Dallas Academy's team has only eight girls on its roster, in a high school that has a total of only 20 girls roaming its halls. In comparison, the boy's team has over 100 boys to choose from in the school and has enjoyed much greater success than the girls' squad.

In fact, the Dallas Academy boy's team followed the embarrassing loss by the girl's team with a 50-38 win over the same Covenant school.

Dallas Academy prides itself on its small class sizes and specializes in helping students with learning disabilities.

Edd Burleson, the director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, berated Covenant's coach.

"On a personal note, I told the coach of the losing team how much I admire their girls for continuing to compete against all odds," Burleson told rivals.com. "They showed much more character than the coach that allowed that score to get out of hand. It's up to the coach to control the outcome."

Is this guy really ripping a coach for his team's flawless performance? A coach only has so much influence.

It's not the coach's fault the other team can't handle a full court press. And it certainly isn't the coach's fault his team was on fire from beyond the arch.

What was he supposed to do? Tell them to not try so hard to make a shot?

There is something to be said for respect in athletics. I don't think pressing a team when you have, say, an 80-0 lead is necessary at all. But telling a coach not to coach is like telling a player not to play. This particular coach got caught up in the heat of the game.

Obviously, the team on the losing end is lacking in the talent department. Even if the Covenant coach called off the dogs at halftime, we're still looking at an embarrassing loss. Would it make everyone feel a little better if the score ended up being 70-2 or 80-4? A bad loss is a bad loss.

Queal went on to say the game "does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition."

I think a separation of church and sport is necessary here. Beating a team senseless has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. It's a game. Jesus seems like he might be a busy guy to me. With all of the hate we live amongst in this world, I have to believe he isn't fully concerned with whether or not Covenant is applying the full court press.

If you're beginning to feel sorry for the Dallas Academy team, junior guard Lauren Click has a simple message: Don't.

"We don't play to win," Click told the Dallas Morning News. "We play to learn things and get better to bond as a team. If we were playing to win, we would have been gone. We would have given up."

The losing team acknowledges their defeat and takes a graceful approach, yet Covenant still can't let it go. And Grimes becomes the example for all coaches on the youth level. It's OK to win, just don't win by too much.

This writer can be contacted at sports@theeastcarolinian.com.