Keith Strudler: Running Up The Score

You cannot watch any measurable amount of youth sports without eventually seeing what’s called a blowout. Basically where one team wins by such a lopsided margin it’s uncomfortable, no matter which side of ledger you’re on. That might be a 12-0 soccer match, or a 50-10 basketball game, or even a 15-50 cross country race, for those of you who know the sport. Assuming you keep score, uneven sports results are fairly endemic to the games our kids play, despite our often best intentions.

That includes a high school football game in Long Island on October 25, when undefeated Plainedge High School beat previously undefeated South Side 61-13. That result stood in violation of Nassau County’s lopsided scores policy, where teams can be punished for winning by more than 42 points. Because of that, Plainedge head coach Rob Shaver was suspended for one game, last Saturday’s regular season final against Lynbrook, the result of a special committee that didn’t like Shaver’s explanation for why he kept his starters in for the 4^th quarter. Shaver explained that it was only a 35-point cushion entering the 4^th, and stranger things have happened. For the record, Plainedge beat Lynbrook 36-0 last week. So lesson learned, I suppose.

Nassau County isn’t the only place that tries to level uneven play, although perhaps the only that currently has such a rule. Other places use running clocks or suspended play. Baseball sometimes uses a mercy rule to end games early. In things like youth soccer, some organizations fine teams for winning by too much, which creates an odd game of keep away in the second half. And a lot of sports organizations simply let fate run its course and hope adults make smart choices.

It’s impossible to know whether Coach Shaver had any reason to fear a historic comeback, although Frank Reich wasn’t playing quarterback for South Side, so it was probably okay. It’s also hard to know whether Shaver had malicious intent or simply wasn’t particularly good at counting that day. Plainedge had won its previous three games by exactly 42 points. So it would have been easy enough to simply let South Side score a quick six in the final moments. As is always the case, math is answer to everything.

But what should be addressed is a) whether artificially limiting blow out wins and losses is a good idea in the first place, and b) if yes, then what’s the best way to make that happen. As a basic premise of all these rules, we’ve accepted that losing by an undue amount – in this case, more than 42 points – is damaging. That’s because of the inherent damage to self-concept and the chance that kids might quit sports altogether. As you’ll often hear on the sidelines at a one-sided soccer match, of which I’ve watched many, no one’s getting anything out this. That’s with the caveat that sometimes it’s not a bad idea to have a reality check. I’ve talked with far too many unrealistic high school athletes to know that we can sometimes benefit from linking perception to reality. And even though we do live in an increasingly collaborative society, professional success still mandates a fair amount of competitive drive. But that said, let’s agree that some way or another, it’s valuable to minimize embarrassment on the sports field.

The harder part is how to do that. In an ideal world, we’d match teams against equal opponents, like they try to do in youth soccer, where there’s more flights than the Empire State Building. But that’s typically more aspirational than actual. So understanding that inequities will exist, what do you do? Do you make rules penalizing teams for breaking a code, like they have in Long Island? Do you end the game early when a team hits a barrier? Or do you simply do things like run the clock or stop keeping score? These are all artificial means of either keeping it closer or just ending the agony before it gets any worse. And I suppose they all have similar impact, even if the differences foster divergent strategies.

But all of them are simply Band-Aids to the messy reality that sometimes in life, there are people that are simply better than you at something. That’s not an insult, nor is a reason to quit trying – in sports or in life, to extend the metaphor. But it is a reality.

Obviously, that lesson is better learned in high school that say, 3^rd grade. Which is why rec soccer is different than high school varsity basketball. And also why penalizing a single coach is probably not going to change the calculus that much.

And why if you’re a parent or a grandparent, you’ll still probably see your share of blowouts.

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