high school soccer coach apologized after letting a player score 17 goals against winless team

[Demovictory9]

Hubbell's performance that day set the state and national records for most goals in a high school game, something that he and his coach had discussed during the game, per the Traverse City Record-Eagle, a local daily.


But most people on social media weren't impressed by the accomplishment, instead criticizing the blowout as poor sportsmanship and the bullying of a struggling team, reported the Record-Eagle. Many felt that Hubbell should have been taken off the game before hitting the record.

"He was firing them off like a rocket," said Heather Bartelmay, a Kingsley school board member whose son was goalkeeper for part of the game, according to The AP. "We went over and hugged our boys. That's what was needed. Their hearts were bleeding."

-----------

The shutout loss was "pretty demoralizing," said Kingsley head coach Tim VanWingerden, per the Record-Eagle.

"To go after a personal record like that at the cost of another team's dignity was a little uncalled for. Soccer is not the right place for that. Soccer is a gentleman's sport," he said.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/a-michigan-high-school-soccer-coach-apologized-after-letting-a-player-score-16-goals-by-halftime-against-a-winless-team/ar-AAPrL6S?ocid=msedgntp

[roamer65]

1. He definitely should have been taken out.

Usual protocol is to remove the first string player and bring in a second or third one to give them playing experience.

Running up the score also caused the game to be ended at halftime, screwing other players out of playing time.

The coach should be fired.

[jimfields33]

11. Good grief. Our country has seriously gone mediocre

I can’t believe this story. I guess excellence is a negative now. Sad. Sorry kid, your too good. Settle down. Ugh!

[ProfessorGAC]

40. It's Happened In Basketball For 50 Years

Cheryl Miller's coach let her put up well over 100 points in a game her team won by 80. That was around 1980.
When i was in HS, a team in Indiana beat a small school by over a hundred.
This stuff is pure rotten, but it's not recent.

[maxsolomon]

45. Running up the score has always been classless.

From pro sports on down. Sometimes it can't be prevented no matter what the coach does, i.e. in College Football.

Part of "Excellence" is good sportsmanship. You don't need to humiliate an opponent. Sports are a GAME.

[NoRethugFriends]

91. "you're"

[Lucinda]

36. I agree with everything but the firing.

[Archae]

2. "Gentlemen's sport?" Bullshit!

Think of the European "Soccer Hooligans."

Or the two central American countries that went to war over a soccer game.

Each year my home town, (Howards Grove, Wisconsin,) would get clobbered in high school basketball by Kohler.

Because they were better than us!

Sports is COMPETITIVE, somebody has to lose.
And sometimes a really shitty team takes the field and loses, badly.

The same year the Green Bay Packers won every game, (expect the playoffs,) Detroit lost every game.

[Captain Stern]

12. The Packers have never had an undefeated regular season.

You might be thinking of Chicago and Detroit from 1942.

[USALiberal]

13. When did the packers win every game? Nt

[Act_of_Reparation]

14. Here's a hot take:

Sports don't matter.

[Celerity]

18. Of course they do. People do have vast differences of opinion as to which ones and how much, though.

[Act_of_Reparation]

19. You're confusing significance with value as assigned by potential to distract.

Or worse, potential for vicarious success.

[Celerity]

20. I am confusing nothing. Do you say the same about art, music, film, etc, as you do about sport?

[Act_of_Reparation]

25. I'm not in the habit of comparing apples to oranges, no.

Art, music, and film are forms of communication and as such are crucial to the transmission and evolution of ideas. One can draw direct relationships from the arts to pivotal events, which seems supported by a preponderance of arts and artists in our history books, and a relative dearth of soccer players.

Also, I gotta say it is a little odd comparing, say... Dante, to a soccer game between 13-18 year olds in the hinterlands of Michigan. But you like sports. I get it. I like them, too. But they could disappear completely and the world would keep turning.

[Celerity]

27. I refuse to use reductionist essentialism when making value judgements pertaining to human endeavour

I also refuse to call football 'soccer', but that is simply my British upbringing, lol.

You also have failed to broach any discussion of self participation in sport, which has been a shaping force for humans for thousands of years.

[jmowreader]

35. It was the British who invented the term "soccer"

The real name of that sport is “association football.” (The game played with the not-round ball is “gridiron football.”) The Cockneys started using a word that sounded like “soaker” to talk about the game, and it eventually started to be pronounced as it is today.

[Celerity]

38. It is simply football for me and most of the rest of the planet.

Btw, it was not the Cockneys who came up with the slang term soccer/socker. It was from the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum, the students at Oxford, with their late 19th century '-er' or 'ers' naming conventions (probably taken from the Rugby School itself). Rugby became rugger, 'assoc" became soccer/socker, etc.

Example:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Baily_s_Magazine_of_Sports_Pastimes.html?hl=sv&id=d5QbAQAAIAAJ

[jimfields33]

48. I like that the United States doesn't follow and instead made their own name

It makes us unique. Being different isn’t a bad thing.

[Celerity]

53. You didn't make your own name, you use an antiquated name from the UK because 'football'

is used for American football (I do not like that game at all, but that is just my personal preference, I do hold it against anyone who is a fan of it simply for being a fan, we all have our own like and dislikes). A few other nations call it soccer too (Australia for instance, as they too have a game already called football, Aussie rules football, which is a fairly similar to rugby league and rugby union).

[jimfields33]

54. Oops. Didn't realize that.

It’s so hard to keep everything straight with so many varieties.

[RockRaven]

3. Teenagers are... teenagers, so I can't expect the player in question to have perfect insight, but

even a run-of-the-mill self-centered, dumbassed, no-perspective jerk would understand that setting a record like that against obviously hapless opponents is no record at all. Especially in high school sports.

I played various sports in high school and I definitely witnessed multiple individual regional/state records at certain events, including when my teammates were involved. You know how many of those records I could recall the details of (names, numbers, etc) a decade or so later? Zero, zip, nada, none, fuck-all. High school sports records are the weakest of weak sauces.

Some shame on that player. Tons of shame on that coach.

FFS, if nothing else, use that game time to get your team to practice things/scenarios not focused on that one player, or focused on him setting up his teammates. It's a team sport and you've presumably got other opponents to play in the future who will be tougher competition.

Narcissistic morons. SMH.

[msongs]

4. future trumps in training nt

[4Q2u2]

23. Yes I am going there

In the old days. Either the Coach took the player out, or the other Team did. Popped up nails get hammered down.

[Journeyman]

5. When my daughter was 5 years old or so she played soccer on a co-ed team . . .

There was one young boy who was a natural athlete, far better than anyone else on the field.

In a matter of minutes, he scored three goals against our opponent. The coach didn't want to take him out of the game (how can you punish a child for being very good at the skills you're trying to teach them), so he pulled him back and had him play goalie.

Moments later, as the opposing team drove toward the goal, this kid not only blocked their attempt, he took the ball away from them, dribbled it smartly across the field and scored another goal.

Coach called a timeout while he huddled with the other team's coach and the kid's father. The solution they came up with was to switch the kid so he played for the other team. There he quickly scored another four goals, evening the score between teams.

As we broke for half time, and the kids gathered around for a snack and a pep talk, the kid's father walked away with him, patiently explaining how he was too good to play at this level and that the coach thought he'd have a greater challenge if he played with some older, bigger boys.

Sometimes, there's a lot to learn from little kids and how we should treat everyone.

[underpants]

9. I'd never heard of that being done.

Sounds like his father had the right idea.

[Scrivener7]

17. 5 years old is a world of difference from 17 or 18 years old.

[GPV]

6. For god's sake, hubby coached middle school soccer and always pulled his kids back when the score

was heading into the ridiculous zone.

[greenjar_01]

43. It's absolutely expected in soccer

Mismatches become clear very early. Moreover, players on far superior teams can learn a lot by concentrating on possession and passing against a much weaker team. I think a lot of the people commenting in "Foot to the Throat" fashion here don't have that much experience with organized soccer. Unless the goal differential matters (here extremely unlikely) this behavior would be viewed as very poor form by most people who have been involved in or follow the sport.

[Hav]

7. The reaction to that is overblown, especially calls to fire the coach

It sucks to get beaten that badly but it's part of the game. To be butthurt about that and demand that the other team basically shouldn't have given their best is also unsportsmanlike conduct and condescending towards the losing team.

Mutual respect is important but the better team also has a right to enjoy the game and play according to their abilities.

[USALiberal]

15. A real coach would not allow it. Nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

50. WWWHHD?

What Would Woody Hayes Have Done?

Run up the score. Maybe the game needs a "mercy rule" at high school levels and below.

[caraher]

90. It did have a mercy rule

They ended the game at halftime; a previous meeting between the teams also ended at halftime with the score at 9-1

[helpisontheway]

8. Hmmm..when my son played high school soccer they had a mercy rule

If one team had so many goals they would end the game. When he played in college they pulled the first string if they were up by so many goals. It gave the reserve players an opportunity to play.

[underpants]

10. By halftime??? I had a similar experience sort of

This could be a movie. Basically little league basketball but we were in middle school. The kids who couldn’t make the middle school team.

We had a guy who was 6’ and was lights out the best player. He had an attitude so they wouldn’t let him try out for the school team. We had a good team otherwise and a really great coach - his son was point guard but then he should have been. I was the two guard.

We blew teams out but everyone played. We were putting up 60 to almost 80 points in 4 8 minute quarters. The problem arose when we ran a team off the court and then we, the starters, were rooting and hollering for our teammates. Oh and our coach was black. I’d was on the ______ team and was called the same.

The league coaches got together and said that our star could only play 2 quarters and score 10 points. Once he got to 10 they fouled him mercilessly. He had to miss the free throws.

We get to the championship game and the other coach said “Screw this” and we played straight up. They literally stood with the ball for minute after minute. The final score was 14-12. Oh I hit the winner from what’s about the college 3 point line. Banked it in just like Billy Packer had taught me to do called ACC games on TV. My Championship season.

[Scrivener7]

16. This is news? "High school soccer team lost badly, felt bad"

"Their hearts were bleeding"? Seriously? "We hugged our boys"? Really? "Bullied"? Come on!

These are 16 to 18 year old young men. Their hearts are bleeding because their soccer team is being beaten?

This did not cost the losing team their dignity. The dignity of the losing team was lost when they cried "bullying" because they lost.

[radicalleft]

21. Exactly...

At the HS level why should good players be forced to "play down" to the level of their opponents. Life is not always fair, but you can't tell that to soccer moms...

[jimfields33]

49. Keep in mind these are the ones who for their whole lives

got participation trophies. What are we doing to this generation?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. It's definitely a shit move by the winning team. Bringing it up at a school board meeting, though,

is a bit much.

[LizBeth]

24. As a competitive athlete, seems to be what the game is about. I think I would be handling the loss

different then accepting the bleeding hearts of the losers scenario.

[Act_of_Reparation]

26. I thought the game was about sportsmanship.

[LizBeth]

68. Seriously? And losing is part of the sportsmanship that doesn't qualify with a whine.

And having the other teamed guilt cause they kicked ass. Lordy. ... They should have worked on that defense a tad, you think?

[Wingus Dingus]

31. It wasn't really a game, it was a way to get their star player into the record books

by demonstrating his skills against a team specially selected for their inability to play their way out of a wet paper bag. Kind of unseemly.

[Wingus Dingus]

29. To the losers: You earned your humiliation, try not to suck so hard. Try practicing more.

To the winners and the star player: You kicked the asses of an obviously shitty team. You knew they were shitty so you planned their humiliation in advance to benefit one player. I wouldn't be strutting around all cocky and super-proud of this particular win. Save it for when you defeat more worthy competitors.

[obamanut2012]

32. JFC

Just stop.

[Wingus Dingus]

33. What? All these other people commenting on this story, why do you choose to respond

to me?

[kcr]

41. Sounds like Donald Trump n/t

[Wingus Dingus]

52. ?--how so? The losing team stunk, they know it. They should up their game.

The winning team wasn't exactly gracious or magnanimous, that's something they should improve on. What a weird take from you.

[marble falls]

76. Up their game? I wonder why that never occurred to them. It's all about winning and kicking ...

... ass. Screw sportsmanship, we're just here to separate the winners from losers.

I believe in having winners and losers and I believe in "slaughter rules", too. Demoralizing a weaker team is crap and harmful for both teams. Gloating is not sportsmanship.

[Wingus Dingus]

77. I agree--I don't think the winning team's coach demonstrated

a good example at all of sportsmanship, he was just using the losing team's incompetence to showcase his star. But the losing team has to own their loss as well, it does these high schoolers no good to teach them to whine and accuse the other team of being mean if the rules were followed. Sometimes you are shown up badly when you don't bring the skills and the practice. That is LIFE. But this is just a game.

[LiberatedUSA]

78. Na.

The losing side should get trophies as well, so that they understand that no matter how bad you do in life, your boss will give you pat on the back and a “job well done.”

[Russian Spook]

55. Really, "To the losers: You earned your humiliation"

What do you mean by that? What I get out of what you said is you believe that they didn't bother to practice, just showed up for the game, and didn't even try to win. Unless you personally know the players and know they just didn't care about how well they played then you were way out of line. I think they are great showing up for game after game.

[Wingus Dingus]

58. Sometimes your sports team stinks and you get your ass kicked HARD.

Sometimes, embarrassingly so. It's OK, that happens. No need to complain about "bullying". Do a post-mortem and make changes, there's obviously room for improvement.

[Russian Spook]

61. Why don't you explain to us how they earned their humiliation? That is probably what others are get

on to you about. Start by telling us how many hours they practiced every week and how many more hours they should have practiced.

[jcgoldie]

57. No class.

Your response is what sucks here.

[Wingus Dingus]

59. Why? I'm genuinely curious.

[jcgoldie]

62. Because you seem to think high school sports is about humiliation

Thats ridiculous. You know nothing about that team other than they were humiliated and the opposing coach allowed his players to rub it in sending a shit message to all the kids on both sides. You make the assumption they deserved all the humiliation they got ignoring completely the fact that high schools have wide disparities in talent and ability. These aren’t professional athletes they are students in a learning environment. What they learned here and what you advocate is that people are fucking assholes.

[Wingus Dingus]

63. Huh? They gave up 17 goals to one guy. That's the definition

of humiliating defeat. They were thrashed. Worse, they were specifically chosen in advance as the unwitting victims for the benefit of the star player's career. It's unseemly and not a nice, sportsmanlike thing to do. But, in the end it is just a game. Anyone who's played sports has had a crushing defeat. You will always meet people who will play better, have more talent. It's a good life lesson. I'm not saying anything different than other people, and yet you zero in on me--why?

[jcgoldie]

65. You said that a team of high school students "earned humiliation"

Thats an asshole thing to say in any context.

[Wingus Dingus]

67. I said they EARNED it. When you don't play well at all, and the other side

totally eats your lunch, you don't really have room to complain about bullying unless they were cheating, or the referee was unfair, or the opposing team was clearly made up of seniors and your team is all freshmen. But these aren't little kids, this is high school, defeat is part of the experience.

[Russian Spook]

70. Social media was making the comments, the boys playing did not.

Show me an article where it said the boys were complaining about bullying? Show me an article where the boys were complaining about anything. Now I am still waiting for you to tell me how the boys earned their humiliation.

[Hav]

69. I think the others are having issues with how it was expressed

that the losing team earned their humiliation. I didn't understand it as being deserving of humiliation but as the advice to accept the defeat as a result of simply not being good enough and that shaming the better team is a deflection.
But I can see how the wording is upsetting other posters.

[Wingus Dingus]

71. I suppose. I just don't see it as a big deal, to stink and lose a game badly.

But it's silly to go all "participation trophy" on them, because they are not little kids and they know they did poorly. I disagree with accusing the other team of bullying, or of acting like the loss is something that caused "hearts to bleed" and needing hugs. These folks need to get a grip, defeat is a part of every game, and getting your butts kicked will either make you resolve to get better, or realize that soccer ain't your thing. I do think the bigger deal is that they were kind of preyed upon/taken advantage of by the winning team's coach. Casts a cloud on the whole thing.

[Zeitghost]

30. We took some poundings in HS Water Polo

And I got smoked pretty bad at a few swim meets. It always pushed me to go harder, train longer and made the wins taste that much sweeter.

HS sports are competitive and great stats can lead to attention from college scouts. This isn't a rec league or instructional league for little kids.

[Chautauquas]

34. I would have yanked that kid from the game

what's the point of humiliating a team that's already losing badly? Might have been a good opportunity to pull the starters out and let other kids get some playing time.

[brooklynite]

81. And by "humiliate" you mean "continue to play by the rules both teams agreed to"?

[brooklynite]

82. THE AMAZING METS by Jerry Mitchell...

Read up the first few years of the New York Mets. They were, by any standard, one of the worst times in professional baseball, made up of has-been players long past their prime and green rookies who were unprepared for professional baseball. They ended up winning only 25% of their games that season. None of the other teams thought they should “go easy on them”.

[Chautauquas]

84. Is there a rule against rotating other players into the game?

Why run up the score in a lopsided game?

[brooklynite]

85. In fact, there is...

Depending on the league, there are limits on the number of substitutions that can be made.

[Chautauquas]

86. No, there isn't

I didn't ask if there are rules about now many substitutions can be made during a game. I asked if there are rules against rotating other players into a game. There is not a rule against doing that. It's allowed.

[gratuitous]

37. My dad coached high school basketball for a while back in the 40s

His team was usually good, and competed for the league championship every year with another team that was the Wooden-coached UCLA of their era. Another team in the league had had a falling out between the star player and the coach, and the star player quit the team, taking most of his buddies with him. They had a junior, a couple of sophomores, and filled out the lineup with freshman. Naturally, they were horrible and took their lumps twice a week.

The powerhouse team got their turn against the Sad Sacks, and beat them by the then unheard-of score of something like 90 to 16. The next practice, Dad came in and the team chatter was all about how powerhouse had scored 90 points, and they were going to shoot for 100, just to show 'em. Dad let the kids talk for a little while, then announced his starting lineup for Tuesday's game against the Sad Sacks: One of the usual starters and four second stringers. "But Coach, we could set a school record for points! We could get a hundred!" Yeah, you could. But you're not going to.

Dad's team shellacked the Sad Sacks, but nothing like 90-16. Afterward, the Sad Sacks coach told Dad how much he appreciated getting a more competitive game. Dad said it was an archaic concept called sportsmanship.

[AwakeAtLast]

42. If I was the opposing coach

I would just have my players sit in the grass. That's it. Just sit and make the other team play around them.

[greenjar_01]

44. Correct

Or walk off and deny him the record.

Forfeit at 15 goals.

[Lancero]

51. I'm really loving some of the ideas in this thread that somehow wouldn't be humiliating.

Idea 1 - Pull the player, replace them with someone inexperienced. Other team isn't any sort of threat, right, so why not let the newbies beat them around some? Gotta get experience somehow, right?

Idea 2 - Just... Have your entire team sit on the grass. Let the opposing team do whatever. What better way to spare a team the humiliation of defeat than by saying they're not even worth actually playing against?

Idea 3 - Spend the first half of the game beating them around, and then... Forfeit. Because, apparently, the team is so bad that a victory against them isn't worth having on record.

Sometimes the least humiliating option is to give the opposing team a quick defeat, rather than pointlessly and needlessly drawing things out.

[brooklynite]

56. Tough...

Yes, it would make sense to let less-experienced players have time; NO it should never be the plan to restrain a more qualified team from scoring against a less qualified time. That’s competition. If the less qualified team is that bad (we’re talking about 10 players unable to mount a defense against ONE striker), then they should be playing in a league with lower quality teams.

[brooklynite]

60. In most professional football leagues, if you're a lousy team, you get dumped...

…into a lower league at the end of the season. And a better qualified team from the lower league takes your place.

No “participation trophies”

[Happy Hoosier]

73. But this wasn't a professional game.

I don't expect teams to hold back in pro sports, because it's a job. But these are school kids. As Joe would say... C'mon, man...

[brooklynite]

74. I'm not aware that Joe is opposed to....

…playing to win. If the losing team is so under-matched, they should be playing in a different league, pro or not.

[Happy Hoosier]

75. Joe is in favor of kindness and decency

The winning team was going to win. But they didn't need to humiliate the losing team, which they did.

Humility in defeat. Magnanimity in victory. Unless the losers are Trumpers.

[brooklynite]

79. Were any of the goals scored in an unsportsmanlike way?

“Decency” does not require you to play below your abilities. We’re no talking about a parent “wrestling” with his/her kids. Two teams agreed to play soccer. The game was played on a standard field, with an equal number of players for an agreed upon time period. One team was substantially better than the other. They played that way. No reason to pull your punches to make the other side “feel” better.

[WarGamer]

64. tbh those State and Nat'l records will look good on Scholarship/College Applications...

[lame54]

66. The record to beat...

Was probably under similar circumstances

[GulfCoast66]

72. When I was a kid playing baseball the first year our team was all very young kids.

We got absolutely killed every game. I guess this was before the mercy rule thing. We routinely got beat 10-12 or 15 to zero. Our parents just told us to work harder. Fast forward 3 years. We all stuck together and were now the more experienced and frankly more hard working ones. We won our division killing some younger teams. Lost in regionals because my pitching got hit. Still remember the feeling of letting my team down, but it was a lesson.

We would never had appreciated what we accomplished had our parents stepped in to prevented our feelings being hurt. And they were. I still remember crying after some of those early games. But it made us try harder.

I guess I’m just too hard hearted. But I was elementary aged when this took place. These kids are high school kids. They can take it. It’s their parents who are so bent out of shape. I can’t imagine in a million years my dad complaining about me losing badly in a fair competition. Other player far superior? Work harder.

I learned that when I lost, I should work harder and try to get better. These kids are being shown that they should complain about it.

I know this won’t be a popular post, but it is my experience. And I would trade it for nothing. It helped form my early understanding of competition and the value of hard work.

[Paladin]

80. 17 soccer goals? What's that the equivalent of in football: 119-0?

That coach should be without a job.

[greenjar_01]

83. Yes, it's roughly like

a running back scoring 15-16 touchdowns in the first half. Ridiculous.

Let me reiterate that most of the people commenting that this is alright have likely had little involvement in organized soccer. I've been involved in youth soccer variously as a player, referee, coach, and admin for over 40 years. This behavior is absolutely inappropriate. Young players have a lot to learn by playing a possession game against a much weaker team, and a varsity high school team surely has second stringers who could have gotten some field time and improved. There is a teaching aspect to high school sports as well.

In thousands of youth soccer games around this country every weekend, coaches pull their teams back into a passing posture. The clearest sign that somebody knows almost nothing about soccer is acting like this is a weird thing to do.

There was a lot of failure here: by the winning coach, by the losing coach, by the referees.

[jonstl08]

87. Same thing happend at my school

My high school was a soccer power house when I was there. They beat a team by a score of 17-0. Our coach pulled the starters (4 high school all Americans) when the score was 8-0 about 2/3 of the way thru the first half. Then most of the second string 5 minutes into the second half with the score 14-0. Halfway thru the second half he ordered the team not to score again but play keep away which they did. I know the coach felt bad about the score and apologized to the other coach after the game.

[greenjar_01]

89. This is the common practice in youth soccer

The coach did the right thing in your case.

[totodeinhere]

88. I am not much of a soccer fan, but I thought the goal was to score as many goals as possible.

It's not Hubbell's fault that the team he was playing sucked.