Mansfield High's Football Season Lives - For Now
Mansfield High School was allowed to play Bishop Feehan Wednesday evening for
the right to go to the Division 2 Super Bowl. The[sic] won the game 22-6.
The MIAA, the board that governs high school sports in the state, learned this week that Mansfield had a fifth-year player on its roster who was ineligible. Even though that player only saw limited action during two lopsided victories, the MIAA ruled
Mansfield must forfeit the two games he played in and that would have knocked them out of the playoffs.
I guess I'm just too simple of a man here. It shouldn't be too difficult to determine if the player in question was ineligible, right? Once it has been established that the player was ineligible, it shouldn't be too difficult to determine whether he played in any games - lopsided victories or not (side note: Perhaps the victories were "lopsided" because your fucking team was cheating?).
End of fucking list.
There should be no controversy here, folks. They broke the rules, they forfeit the games, they don't make the playoffs. We start making exceptions because they did so well, then, hell, what's the point in having any rules at all?
I particularly liked this quote:
"After the tournament is over, we will invite Mansfield in to make their case and deal with it. If Mansfield were to go on and win the tournament and are found to be guilty, we would strip them of the title."
Yeah. Anyone want to give odds on whether or not they'd actually go through with this? It's about the same time Mumbles admits he's been an abysmal failure as mayor and commits ritual seppuku live on channel 25...
One of the local news stations runs a blog-like section called Conversation Nation where they discuss this story. Comments to the entry are overwhelmingly in favor of letting the school compete in the finals, with the overwhelming attitude of "let the kids play, it's not their fault". Now, while this is certainly true, don't we set a dangerous example by throwing the rule book out the window in this case?
Don't we just set the stage for another Plaxico Burress situation, where the rules for a sports star are different than those of the plebes? How can we push aside the rules for sports eligibility for winning teams and then wonder why cheating is on the rise? Rules are in place for a reason. If they can be pushed aside for expediency's sake when a team, or a player, or a company is doing well, then they need to be abolished. Period. Even when the team breaking the rules is winning.
That is all.
1 comment:
I saw something similer during my playing days. We were ranked in the top 20 (small school rankings, NAIA) and were playing a Div II team that was something like 17-1. Anyway, it was our school's Christmas tournament & we played them for the champsionship (I sucked in the game, btw. Didn't deserve to play the 6 minutes I was in there) and lost. The coach ran us mercilessly and screamed for a week. Gave us 6 whole days for the Christmas break & we were back at practice as part of our "punishment" since we'd lost another tournament shortly thereafter (to the reigning national champions, but things like that didn't matter to our coach). [Side note: he's the biggest asshole I've ever encountered in my 41 years and I'd like to say that the Christian in me would step up and help the fellow if he were in need, but the realist tells me I'd give him the finger and dare him to mouth off so I could finally give him the ass kicking that he deserved so many years ago]
Anyhow, we found out 2 months later that they had an ineligible player (who played, maybe, 10 minutes per game) and their entire season was wiped out. Went from something like 25-6 to 0-31 in a snap.
All those years of playing and the only real championship I ever won was that rinky-dink tournament that we had 'given' to us thanks to a technicality.
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