Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Sportsmanship went out the window this afternoon

Columbia hosted a seventh and eighth grade football game this afternoon on the hill against Reading.
Reading is the biggest school on District Three and we all know that Columbia is the smallest school in the area.
The good news is Columbia won the game in the last minute, 32-28.
The bad news was there was an ugly incident in the first half of the game that almost caused the game to be stopped and forfeited.
Just a little background. When I do the announcing at basketball and wrestling, I do a much smaller version of the announcement. First off, no one can hear it or by now, everyone knows it. There are certain games, you read the expanded version and we all know what games they are. But for the most part, what I've found is the sportsmanship policy isn't uniformly enforced throughout the L-L League.
In you haven't noticed, its read to the coaches and captains prior to football games.
So today, being the only person sitting on the Reading side of the field, I heard a lot coming from the Reading sidelines. It wasn't good. The end result was a pair of 15-yard penalties against the Reading coach, a sideline warning and an ejection.
The ejection was a concern. After the Red Knight coach was thumbed from the game, he refused to leave for several minutes. The game was halted and both teams were sent to the sidelines and I even heard the Reading coach mutter some words about getting the official after the game.
The game should have been stopped, if not then, definitely when the Reading coach tried to coach from the bus in the second half.
I didn't have an issue with the ejection because it was warranted. The officials were trying to be nice to the Reading coach by leaving him on the bus but it backfired. It was a little testy there for a while.
The Reading coach poor judgement throughout the game and I really hopes the school takes action against this individual. Coaches are suppose to set the example, not cause the problem.

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