Most high school coaches try to balance the pursuit of victory with a sense of sportsmanship.
Sometimes the line gets fuzzy.
Occasionally it gets demolished.
On Sept. 29, running back Paul McCoy of the Matewan (W.Vir.) High School football team rushed for 658 yards and 10 touchdowns in a 64-0 victory over winless Burch High School.
According to a story in the Washington Post, McCoy broke the national prep single-game rushing record (the previous record was 619 yards). In the process he and his coach, Yogi Kinder, stirred up a national debate. Among the questions:
* Is any sports record worth pursuing at the cost of sportsmanship?
* What significance do individual achievements have compared to team success?
* What values should high school coaches teach their players?
McCoy topped 300 yards rushing by halftime and figured he’d sit out the second half because his team was so far ahead, the Post reported. But early in the third quarter, Kinder decided to give the senior a shot at the record. The coach had his players run a no-huddle offense and asked them to stop returning punts so the ball could roll farther, giving McCoy a chance to gain more yards.
As news of McCoy’s accomplishment spread, several of Kinder’s peers criticized the coach’s actions. According to the Washington Post, Kinder gave two reasons for chasing the record:
1. He wanted to help the undersized McCoy get recruiting attention.
2. He hoped to boost the spirits of his team, which forfeited two games earlier this season for using an ineligible player.
After hearing a brief summary of the story, some Snohomish County high school football coaches shared their thoughts on the matter.
“That’s ridiculous. I don’t know (coach Kinder) and I don’t know that team at all, but I just think that is wrong on so many levels,” Lake Stevens coach Tom Tri said. “If you’re gonna break a record, it should be done in the spirit of the game itself.”
Tri’s point: If a player breaks a record in a competitive game, great. But there’s no justification for chasing a record against an inferior opponent.
Also, leaving star players in during a blowout penalizes other less-heralded kids, Tri said.
“Why wouldn’t you give other kids who have worked just as hard … opportunities to get experience and help the team?” he said.
Mariner coach John Ondriezek had a similar reaction.
“You owe it to other members of the football team who have been on the scout team to play in the second half. That’s not right to those kids,” said Ondriezek, who is in his 14th season guiding the Marauders.
Ondriezek disagreed with Kinder’s explanation that the record would help McCoy get a scholarship. College coaches don’t want to see a potential recruit dominate a weak opponent, he said, they want to see how he fares against good competition.
Tri said he was on the demoralizing end of some rough, pointless blowouts when he coached girls basketball at Lake Stevens. He also said he ran up the score once – and only once – in football when he coached the school’s junior-varsity squad. But he learned an important lesson.
“That stuck with me. … I lost my focus on what was right,” Tri said. “I apologized to my team after the game and told them that I made a mistake.
“Don’t get me wrong, I want to win,” Tri added. “But I look at high school sports as building character (and) lifelong skills (in) student-athletes. … If you don’t have sportsmanship, what are you telling your team?”
Jackson football coach Joel Vincent knows all about balancing team goals with individual pursuits. In 2003, one of Vincent’s star players, Johnie Kirton, approached the state’s single-season rushing record.
Kirton, now a sophomore tight end at the University of Washington, could have piled on many more yards but sat out the second halves of several decisive wins. Ultimately, he gained 2,675 yards – 1 shy of the state record.
With four games to go that season, Vincent approached Kirton to gauge the player’s thoughts on the value of the record.
“I talked to Johnie,” Vincent said, “and we both agreed that what was important was team wins and if he got (the) record, that was great. But the bottom line was that we wanted to win games.”
Jackson went on to make its first-ever state playoff appearance and finished 10-2. Kirton didn’t get the record, but the Timberwolves enjoyed a memorable season. No one seems to have regrets.
“To this day I see Johnie and talk to him quite often,” Vincent said, “and not once has he said, ‘You know coach, I wish we had that record.’ “
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