Running up the score equals bullying?

Fox12

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Jun 6, 2013
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Oh no, not this again. I had to hear it on the news. I'm sorry your fucking kid sucks at football lady, but maybe the entitled little shit needs to learn that mommy and daddy won't always be there to make everything okay.

This really pisses me off. A kid shoots up a school and offs himself, and this is what we're talking about? A girl commits suicide, and this is what we're talking about? I know MULTIPLE friends who were raped in their schools, and the schools covered it up, and this is what we're talking about? This is the worst kind of entitlement. There are real issues with bullying out there, and this is an insult to all the victims out there. Pathetic.

Besides, the other team didn't do anything unethical. They should be put in a better league with better teams, but the opposing coach seemed like a decent guy. He even tried to play his worst players.

Angry rant over.
 

LysanderNemoinis

Noble and oppressed Kekistani
Nov 8, 2010
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Is it bullying? Yes, yes it is. In the America we live in today, this is definitely bullying. In school, teachers can't criticize students for being wrong. A new curriculum going around academia called Common Core says that if a student says that two plus two equals five, as long as they can explain how they got to the result, it still counts as correct. Everybody in sports gets awards for participation; and people are told that if they're not successful, it's not their fault, it's the fault of other people who may or may not have more money than them. So thank the wimpification of America for this story, fellow Escapists.
 

Drummodino

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Jan 2, 2011
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I can speak from experience here. The soccer team I played for from the ages of 11-13 was TERRIBLE. We conceded over ten goals a game quite regularly. Hell, we had a team celebration when we scored our first goal! Never mind the fact we lost that game 4-1 or something like that.

Does it feel bad to get pummeled? Yea it does. You know what was worse though? When the opposing team stopped taking the game seriously and just mucked around, when they stopped playing to win. It gives you the impression that they don't respect you. You feel that you're not "worthy" to even try and compete against them.

From the article it sounds like the coach did the best thing he could. He used the game to give his second and third stringers a run. He didn't send his best team out to mercilessly pulverize the other team, but he still played hard. He treated the other team with respect, yet he mitigated the punishment somewhat.

I'm sure the players he sent out would have been happy too that they were getting game-time. Again, speaking from experience, sitting on the bench can be a frustrating experience. Especially when you feel that the coach doesn't respect you as much as the first team.

The only times I feel it is okay to take it easy on another team is when they are either:

a) Younger than you
b) They are undermanned

It's not fun beating up little kids. I played against a team which had only 7 players once, and two of them were around 8 years old (we were 15-16). We didn't slide tackle the little kids, and we didn't rub our noses into the other team. We still won 6-1 or something but both teams enjoyed the game. The coach of the other team even thanked us afterwards for our consideration.
 

frizzlebyte

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Oct 20, 2008
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Vegosiux said:
I blame this on the Western pop culture where the underdog, without fail, always pulls a miracle comeback and either wins or loses just narrowly (but earns their status as "worthy opponent"). Life don't always work that way.
Actually, it's probably more of the fact that we've had some really high-profile bullying-related suicides going on in the news lately. While I think it's great that we are exposing these problems (I've seen the effects of relentless, focused bullying, and it ain't pretty), it does tend to create a situation where we start calling everything bullying.

As far as this case goes? The father's overreacting by a mile (or five). He should be teaching his kid that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

And sometimes you get romped on.

It doesn't feel good, but that's what life is occasionally.
 

ThreeName

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May 8, 2013
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That's like saying getting a bad test result is bullying. Noone cares if the real world made your son feel bad.

That said, most kids sports I know have mercy rules to stop this sort of this from happening.
 

Signa

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This kind of thing is what I was afraid of when I started scoffing at anti-bullying movements. Someone will take it too far, and while not this time, some one will be punished for it if allowed to continue this way. I'd rather live in a world full of depressed teens than one where a game can't be played for enjoyment or competition in case it hurts someone's feelings.
 

Trivea

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Jan 27, 2011
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This reminds me of the trend in schools to remove the word "fail" from the educational lexicon. I'm not even kidding. In some schools, you don't "fail" - you achieve "deferred success". Apparently, it's too hurtful to tell a kid that he didn't achieve enough right answers to get a passing score, because screw education, it's self-esteem that matters!

It's more evidence that the American educational system is going downhill. This happened in my state, too, depressingly enough. You aren't doing kids any favors by holding their hands and giving them "Everyone Is A Winner" speeches, because it's just going to screw them over in the real world. That's why kids who are fresh out of high school apply at companies and expect to be made Vice President of Marketing making upwards of $100k a year. They've been taught they can't fail and everything they do is wonderful because of the Special Little Snowflakes they are.
 

EyeReaper

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Aug 17, 2011
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isn't there usually like, a mercy rule that stops someone from this sort of thing? or is that just baseball?
 

Akytalusia

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Nov 11, 2010
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reality check's are not bullying. they're enlightening. now the losing team has a better understanding of their position. this information should be used to develop appropriate countermeasures to compensate for their weaknesses. if they don't learn from this event, then they'll have wasted it.
 

Ihateregistering1

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Mar 30, 2011
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Honestly, if I was on the losing team, I'd consider it far greater bullying if the other team took a knee on every play or purposefully fumbled the ball for us than if they kept playing. Now they're not only showing us how much better they are than us, but they're essentially mocking us by giving us points for free.

Also, American HS football doesn't generally have "mercy rules", but they do run the clock continuously once the score becomes overly lopsided, which they did in this game.
 

Gottesstrafe

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Oct 23, 2010
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rhizhim said:
tippy2k2 said:
If I may be so bold, picture this scenario:


I suppose there are two questions here;

1st: Is there anyone that would call this bullying? The parent is arguing that it is bullying because the coach ran up the score so much on his kids team.
2nd: Did the winning school do anything wrong here (so it's not bullying but they should have done more to pull in the reigns)?
this is another "only in america" thing, where your personal incompetence is always the other ones fault.

do you remember the woman that was texting on the phone while walking around and fell into a fountain in the mall and subsequently sued the mall?

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7910045

(the best part is that she summoned a streisand effect since no one can really recognize her face on the video)

anyways, its kind of dickish to get your score so high just to make the opposing team seem beyond being incompetent at what they should be able to do, but then again it takes pretty damn much skill to be able to pull this off so they deserve it.
What? The woman wasn't suing the mall because she fell in the fountain, she even recognized that it was her own damn fault. She was suing them because mall security filmed and uploaded that video and they wouldn't even listen to her complaints until she threatened legal action. That might even fall into the realm of workplace harassment since she was an (unspecified) mall employee. This would be like saying the events in here [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57427661-71/best-buy-employee-outs-customer-on-facebook-as-a-joke/] were entirely the customer's fault or absolving the highway patrol officers that started passing around photos of Nikki Catsouras's post-car accident mangled body on the web of their responsibility.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
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shootthebandit said:
91-0 is that even possible? Theyd have to score a goal a minute
The team at my elementary school which played real football (or soccer) managed to lose with the score 0-31 and that's really a whole lot for a sport where 3 goals in a game is considered a lot. The opposing team even made sure everyone would score, even the goalie which is something that shouldn't happen.

OT: Yeah, if this is bullying then so is the fact that people fail subjects in school. So is the fact that I can't compete against the world's best marathon runner.

The team sucked and was pitted against a quite good opponent. Of course this will result in soul crushing despair for the team. Now we could explore the options available to us in this.

They could have stopped trying once they passed 30-0 since then it would be clear that they'd never recover. Now what message would they be sending out? They'd basically say that they sucked so hard that they didn't feel like trying any more. They would basically say that the game wasn't worth their effort, but they had to run out the clock anyway. I honestly think this could be worse for morale than the crushing defeat.

There is of course the option to end it before time. Basically the same option as above, but making it more of a public humiliation thing. Expressing that they don't think they're worth the time. If they did that the winning team would also come across as arrogant assholes.

They could have pretended to be worse than they were, but that level of conscious consideration of one's behaviour is hard to maintain over time, especially when adrenaline kicks in. This would also make it hard to hone their skills since they would be underachieving rather than pushing their limits.

So in conclusion, there's no way to make this right. Sometimes there's just too much disparity in skill between two teams for the game to result in anything other than despair. It's a shame, it's devastating and it's bad for morale, but it happens. It's not bullying though.
 

Gunner_Guardian

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Jul 15, 2009
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Now this is a bit silly. Being a better team isn't bullying, in fact if I was the opposing coach I'd be tempted to make a trollish apology like: "I'm sorry my well-train and disciplined team worked together to defeat your team. Clearly it was wrong of me to think a team like yours could stand up to our A-game and at least not let us break away every minute. I hope your team that can't pass to save it's life isn't too crushed after that game where we absolutely curbstomped you."
 

Abomination

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Dec 17, 2012
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Maybe the son would be a better football player if the father didn't treat him like a fucking porcelain doll.

I remember playing Rugby League back in High School and there were some teams I was able to run circles around and break their line - subsequently scoring - every time I got a hold of the ball. What should I have done? Taken to the field in a wheelchair or crutches to give the other team a 'sporting chance'? I get the feeling that would have been more insulting.

I wonder what he would say if some kid got an A+ in a test while his kid got a D?
 

Doclector

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Aug 22, 2009
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I could also be described as "harsh" on bullying.

And this...this isn't bullying. This is a game being played by the rules of said game. And if this is supposedly one of the best teams in the country, then there's no real shame in being curb stomped so badly. Sure, it hurts to lose, and it hurts more to lose so badly in front of so many people, but if the team's coach, the school, and the kid's parents are doing their jobs, they should have all the support in the world should this defeat end up being more damaging than a week long bad mood.

And that's another thing, people who say bullying is unavoidable are fucking cowards. How come there are some people who have never encountered it? If people gave more of a shit, it wouldn't happen so much, and when it did, the people responsible would actually pay for it instead of being told not to do it and let go to do it again. Defeat IS unavoidable. If you're never defeated, it only means you never played anything, never fought your own battles, never really did anything of worth in your life. Bullying is not something people have to "learn to live with" as so many idiots would have you believe. Defeat, on the other hand, is, and the school has no duty (and no means) to protect people from said defeat, only a duty to help kids learn to deal with it healthily.
 

Clive Howlitzer

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Jan 27, 2011
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When I sit down and watch sports, I see all of them playing at such a higher level than I can. I honestly feel bullied. I think they should all take it down a notch and play worse.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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Fox12 said:
Oh no, not this again. I had to hear it on the news. I'm sorry your fucking kid sucks at football lady, but maybe the entitled little shit needs to learn that mommy and daddy won't always be there to make everything okay.

This really pisses me off. A kid shoots up a school and offs himself, and this is what we're talking about? A girl commits suicide, and this is what we're talking about? I know MULTIPLE friends who were raped in their schools, and the schools covered it up, and this is what we're talking about? This is the worst kind of entitlement. There are real issues with bullying out there, and this is an insult to all the victims out there. Pathetic.

Besides, the other team didn't do anything unethical. They should be put in a better league with better teams, but the opposing coach seemed like a decent guy. He even tried to play his worst players.

Angry rant over.
If this is a common thing, and not just one hopeless parent, then most definitely yes.
 

Tom_green_day

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Jan 5, 2013
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By football I guess you mean American Football right? Because in actual Football a score of 91 would be freaking astronomical.
It's not bullying, but you can't blame the guy for looking for a scapegoat to his son's team getting their arses hammered. He can't exactly tell the son himself that he sucks (or is even only half good against a good team)
 

MattRooney06

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Apr 15, 2009
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Oh boo fucking hoo, is this really news now? Did the Dad need to file a complaint?

So his sons team lost, big deal, welcome to life, sometimes you win, and sometimes you get completley destoryed, that's a lesson he should be teaching his son, how to deal with it