Have you ever heard of a coach getting fired for leading their team to a 100-0 blowout halfway through the regular season?
Professional, collegiate and even some high school coaches put their neck on the line every week, only to find themselves without so much as a job offer at the end of what transpired into another losing season.
But why would a high school coach be fired after his team crushed Dallas Academy in what can only be described as 100-0 annihilation? It could have been because the Covenant School of Dallas stomped on Dallas Academy in the fourth district game of the season. It could have been because the Covenant School head coach Micah Grimes refused to apologize for the win. Never mind Grimes agreed to forfeit the win the following morning.
You don’t see college coaches getting fired following a 66-21 loss (as Oklahoma overthrew Texas Tech). You don’t see Bill Belichick getting the boot for almost posting a perfect season. Could you imagine firing the coach of an undefeated team simply because they established themselves as unbeatable? It hardly makes sense.
Following the week of the Jan.13 win, the Covenant School, a private Christian elementary and high school in Virginia, cites, “It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened,” the school said in its statement. “This clearly does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition. The school and its representatives in no way support or condone the running up of a score against any team in any sport for any reason.”
Dallas Academy, a school catering to approximately 145 students with learning disabilities, lists just eight girls on the varsity roster. What was a school like Dallas Academy, complete with players born with dyslexia and dysgraphia doing playing against a team of students attending a college prep school?
No matter how successful they were (or in this case weren’t) from the field or free throw line, it’s unrealistic to ask these girls to compete on the same court as those bound for Vanderbilt, West Point or even SMU. It would almost be like throwing our football team in with the University of Texas and hoping we could muster even just a field goal.
I thought the point of sports was to establish a clear winner and loser – not to look poorly upon the winner and fire the coaching staff that led the players to victory. Now, had the Covenant based their decision of firing Grimes off his 2-19 season last year, then I would consider the school’s deicision as justified. But since that was clearly not the case, the Covenant School has done nothing more than fire a coach that was simply doing his job.
As for Grimes, he justified the win by saying, “I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.”
Parents of Dallas Academy students were overheard after the game complaining that the school’s were unevenly matched and Covenant should be ashamed for running up the score. They said students with learning disabilties should not be playing against a team with a higher playing ability. It should also have been taken into consideration that Dallas Academy has failed to win a single game in the past four seasons.
Without a mercy rule in place within the district, Grimes had no other choice than to improve their stats and post another “W” on their record. After all, all teams are searching for that easy win. Had Dallas Academy known this prior to heading into the game, it should have been the responsibility of Dallas Academy’s coach to call off the game. Firing the Covenant School coach as a result was clearly crossing the line. What about a 44-85 Duke win over Maryland? Should Mike Krzyzewski be fired for doubling the Terrapins’ score?
Coaches are saying all the time that it’s the job of the opposing team’s defense to stop their opponent from running up the score.
If the students of Dallas Academy had no problem with Grimes willing to forfeit the win and make it a thing of the past, Covenant School should have no problem looking past the victory and keeping the head coach on track for another win.
Nicole Jacobsen is a junior journalism and advertising double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
