KEY POINTS:
Imagine being the coach of a fabulously successful basketball team. A team so successful that it thumps its opposition by 100 points to nil. Pretty cool, huh?
As the coach, who guided this team of young sportswomen, you'd think the coaching world would be your oyster. But oh no. Not in Texas.
Michah Grimes, the coach of the Covenant School's basketball team who took his girls from 59-0 at half time against Dallas Academy School to 100-0 when the buzzer sounded, was first reprimanded, then sacked by the principal of Covenant.
Which is extraordinary given that Texas is not known for its political correctness and namby-pamby liberalism. Principal Kyle Queal described the thrashing as shameful and an embarrassment. Furthermore, squealed Queal, it did not reflect a Christ-like and honourable approach to competition.
Coach Grimes was having none of that. "My girls played with honour and integrity," he fired back.
"Furthermore," he thundered, "I do not believe that the team should feel embarrassed and ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played."
Dallas Academy, Covenant's hapless opponents, may be a school of just 20 pupils that caters to kids with ADHD and other learning difficulties.
They may not have won a game in four years. But so what? They choose to enter into open competition, and when you're in that niche there's every chance a bigger, better-equipped school is going to thump you.
And personally, I'd rather be treated as an equal even if that means a downtrou.
As an enthusiastic sportswoman with absolutely no talent, I couldn't bear to be patronised in a sporting tournament. I remember when I was 11 and drawn against the club champ at the local tennis club. I was being soundly trounced, but what was worse was when she felt sorry for me.
Being pitied is more painful than being humbled. She turned off the turbo and gave lolly tosses to me and offered cheering "Well dones!" if I managed to get the racquet to the ball. The pain of losing would have passed but the humiliation of being patronised is still deep in my marrow.
Every parent knows there's a time when you have to stop letting kids win. If your children are anything like my daughter was, there was hell to pay when she realised she wasn't always going to win at cards, and that she was going to have to use her brain if she wanted to beat me.
But eventually, she began to win some games on her own merit and the victory for her was all the sweeter.
To get back to the infamous school basketball game, I would love to ask Queal how it is Christ-like to minimise or disguise the talents God gave you.
And is being Christ-like just a matter of numbers - beating your opposition by 30 is Christ-like, but beating them by 100 is not?
* www.kerrewoodham.com
