FIRST-PERSON: Football, a 91-0 loss & bullying?

When I played football, we lost a few lopsided games (and we won a couple, too), and it became a motivating factor to work even harder to win the next game. Then when the same opponent was on the schedule the next season, we had plenty of motivation to beat them.

Sadly, this parent lost a great teaching opportunity, as this article clearly pointed out. Let’s teach our kids how to respond to failure as well as success. Chances are very good they will face both in their lifetime.

Maybe the kids should play a different sport, like knitting. Parents all think their kids are awesome for showing up. Then a team shows up with actual good athletes and little Johnny goes home crying.

I do have a question. Here is a paragraph from the article:

“It is worth noting that in seven games this season Aledo has outscored its opponents 485 to 47, which averages to a score of 69-6 per game. The Bearcats have two games where they scored 84 points and one in which they scored 77.”

My question is, why is Aledo High School so stacked with high skill players while other teams in the area don’t have them? I wonder if someone is recruiting high skill players to Aledo High in an attempt to earn college scholarships and then to get to the pro’s. It doesn’t seem logical that one school would consistently be that awesome. Someone is stacking the deck so to speak. Just something to think about.

why hasn’t Aledo been promoted to the next highest level of competition? As I understand it, Texas High School Football is divided up into various levels of play somewhat akin to the English soccer leagues.

TX high school football plays by college and not HS rules. In actuality the Aladeo coach requested that a running clock be used, TX HS football has no such rule. Football rules in TX.

As well Aladeo was placed in a new conference this school year.The flip side of this lopsided scores like this do not help the winning team when it comes to tight play-off games.

Was glad to see the coach was cleared of the allegation.

Conferences are generally determined by size of school and distance from other schools…

Rob,
I believe that the size of the school determines which class they play in. 4a schools cannot move up without the requisite number of students.

Mark,
there can be lots of reasons for a school to play at such a high level, and it doesn’t mean they are breaking the rules to do so. Maybe they happen to have a large number of upperclassmen who are more experienced, or maybe they are better coached. Maybe they don’t have to recruit because parents of talented athletes move into the district to be able to enroll there kids in a school with this caliber of a football program. Then again, maybe they will be awful next year and get beat 91-0.

Someone does not win 91-0, 67-3, etc over and over again in a generally talented football state like Texas because they are playing all seniors who have experience. This is a stacked deck with a team of extreme high talent players. I’m not accusing them of breaking rules, but there is a VERY REAL reason for this…and its not random. I’m thinking something like UT-Austin or Oklahoma U, LSU, etc often recruits from here. Something like that would draw a lot of people to move to that school.

a few articles mention that the Aledo High School was moved to a new district this year that in general does not have a strong football history…so that likely explains it. For whatever reason they moved a pit bull team into a yard full of miniature poodles.

What’s the name of that school in Ca. That won for ten years straight? They had some victories like that. I think they might have even gone an entire season without being scored on.

My Son’s freshman football team went undefeated. Their school has not had good football in decades, but these kids have been good every year. This week, they had two lopsided wins (outscored their opponents 112-0 this week). They felt bad, but they only have 15 players and their is very little they could do to not score with so few players. They tried, but had no choice.

Mark,

I don’t know TX but in Illinois, if you transfer during high school, you have to sit a year out. They do this to stop the kids from being recruited by private schools. The private schools now have to recruit in jr. high, if they do so. Crazy but true. My guess is that they start young, my son started tackle at 7, and they run the same system as the high school does as soon as they are old enough. My son’s team started the spread offense in 5th grade. So they have it down pretty well as freshman. My guess is that the high school coaches are involved in developing the younger programs. Unless, you can transfer in TX.