Dad ... this is always the quandry good teams with good seasons have.
This has recently been a point of discussion in UIL 2A, with Refugio HS in South Texas. They are a historically excellent team in a historically poor district. So, you try to get a couple decent nondistrict games early, but the rest of the season you're lucky to play teams as good as Little Sisters of the Poor, Crippled Childrens Academy and Famous Cooking School.
The coach there would play his kids a half and the subs for the rest of the game. Problem was, come about four weeks along in the playoffs, they'd catch a quality team and just not have the full game experience to pull it out.
So, last year, the coach decided that come h-e-double-hockey-sticks or high water, his starters would play three quarters. And district games weren't pretty ... 91-6 and stuff like that. Even some of the early playoff games were blowouts (and he got some heat in one of them with a big lead, calling timeout with a few seconds left for a scoring play -- which they got). But guess what? They got to the big dance at Jerry's World this year. And won it. By one point.
And they're doing it again this year.
When do you call off the dogs and play the young'uns? What if you don't have depth (ie 12-16 kids) and rely on just a few kids that are awfully good, which does happen in six man? Heck, if I knew the answers to those questions, I'd be doing more with my life than yapping on a bulletin board. You need to keep your kids sharp because -- guess what -- someday when it's playoff season, you may be playing somebody who has excelled in a tough district or with tough competition.
Now, there's also the "be gracious when you give the blowout, 'cause there will be nights when you're the blowout-ee" rule. Remember, we're all just a couple injuries or a season away from being the "didn't they used to have a good team" school.
Will tell you a story from our pre-football days. One day, we're playing in the girls basketball playoffs. We win 55-25 or something like that against a school which will remain nameless (but used to play six man football). We had a decent team and the press was among our strong points. I'm running the clock and as the game ends, I see some daddy come out of the stands and make a beeline to the scorers table.
Dad insists he must speak to our AD (which was me at the time). When I tell him you got him, dad starts asking if I allow my coaches to press and run up the score (and probably initimated that the press was un-Christian). I said one thing and shut up. I told him I allow my coaches to coach.
I also remembered that during the same season as this girls playoff game, this same school ran up a 102-0 halftime win in six-man football. I'm sure dad was okay with that running up the score. I just knew that this was one school I wasn't gonna take that lecture from.
And another story ... in the years before we started football, we had some decent buckets teams and went to TAPPS state a couple times (finishing 2nd to a D-I wannabee school one year, so as we joked, we won the TAPPS Amateur division that year). Coach liked to press and we ran it pretty well, but won a lot of games 90-23 and more than once, I'd have some administrator from the other school come over and request we stop pressing (like I would tell a coach to change his game mid-game...I may be dumb, but I ain't stupid). I'd commiserate with the guy and that would be it.
So, year one of football, we're foolish enough to win a district game and earn a playoff trip to the defending (and what would be repeating) state champ, Granbury Happy Hill. It was not a pretty night. Middle of the second quarter, it's 66-6, and we're not the 66. Some of the Happy Hill kids decided to come over to our side of the stands and have a good ol' time laughing about how we were having our butts kicked.
I came really close to walking over to Brad Clanton and asking him to call off the dogs.
Until the good Lord reminded me of all those nights when folks would walk over to me asking me to do the same thing. I think I heard Him say something like "what goes around, comes around."
Thank you, Jesus.
PS Had lunch with a couple basketball coaches from Christian schools and we had this discussion on the press and how some considered pressing as un-Christian. One of my friends pointed out that is incorrect. If you'll read Paul's letter to the Phillipians, he said "Press on." I heard the Phillipians had a pretty good team that year, too.
)
