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Saturday, March 10, 2007

Sportsmanship's sorry state

No matter how many times I see it, I'm constantly amazed when coaches run up the score on opponents. So much for teaching sportsmanship.

Take the Christian Life and Plain Dealing Class 1A semifinal game down in Lafayette on Friday. The Lions were in the game for a brief moment in the first quarter, but then the Crusaders and their guard Josh White took over.

Christian Life was ahead by 30 at halftime and 42 after three quarters. The Crusaders' five starters didn't come out of the game until midway through the fourth quarter. White, a Mr. Basketball hopeful, played 28 minutes.

Christian Life won, 95-42, and it's believed to be the largest margin of victory in the tournament's modern history. There was no need for Christian Life head coach Todd Foster to keep his five starters in the game that long.

Plain Dealing head coach David Bryant showed more class in defeat.

"I didn't have a problem with that," Bryant said. "My job is to prepare the team, and we were not as prepared as I thought we were."

Said Foster: "I've never done that in my career. I carry myself with dignity. We've never, ever run the score up on people. I've been on the other side too many times.

Foster, who used to coach at Evangel and faces plenty of allegations of running the score up on its own, is dead wrong. If he's been on the other side too many times, then he should recognize when its happening, and it happened Friday night.

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