Running Up the Score

This is an article on running up the score, and my response, from a couple of years back in an online forum.

RUNNING UP THE SCORE? by Dick DeVenzio

When you play a sport, you ought to play it! Really play it. You ought to go out there with the idea of kicking some butt. What does that mean? A lot of people seem to get bogged down in sportsmanship at times, and to forget that one of the true joys of sport is seeing two tough competitors go at it.

It’s not life and death. You aren’t out to hurt anyone. But who gets hurt by getting kicked in the butt? When was the last time you heard that a pro player would miss the next game due to a kick in the butt? It doesn’t happen. They get ankle sprains and ligament tears and cartilage rips and broken bones; but they don’t miss many games because of kicks in the butt. So you’re free to kick the other team’s butt — literally and figuratively.

Go at it. Play hard. Play harder. Play tough and rough.

As long as you don’t try to hurt anyone, your opponent will respect you for your toughness and your approach. This is hardly a call for neglecting sportsmanship. It’s just a reminder that you don’t deserve admiration for your efforts in sports — and you won’t get it — unless you are going at it with ferocity. Be tough. Be fierce. Be aggressive. You can be a good sport without this kind of approach. But you can’t be a great one. Go out and kick some butt. And don’t be afraid to run up the score. Win by a hundred if you can. Personally, I’ve never understood the etiquette of winning by only a respectable amount. I think, when you’re playing a sport, you ought to pile up as many points as you possibly can. I think that’s what sport is all about, and any other approach just degrades the whole experience.

Have you heard the line “What goes around comes around”? The idea is: If you beat someone by a humiliating margin, someday, the reverse will happen and you will get beaten by a humiliating margin. Really? Does that sound like a good warning to you? It doesn’t to me.

My response to that way of thinking is: Good luck. Have at it. If you can beat me by a so-called humiliating margin, that’s exactly how badly I want to get beaten, and not a point less. I can’t imagine any joy in getting beaten by 17 when I know you were actually able to beat me by 50. Where’s the satisfaction in that?

In fact, let me go a step further and make this perfectly clear: I don’t respect coaches that squawk about some other coach or team running up the score.

I think true athletes want the score to reflect exactly what happened on the field. If we’re 50 points better than you, then we ought to beat you by 50. If you’re 50 points better than me, you’ll be demeaning me by beating me by any less.

Here’s an example that I think will explain the wisdom of this way of thinking:

Several years ago, my brother and I went on weekends to play racquetball at a local racquetball club. My brother was much better than I, and he won every time we played. So, how could we keep going to play, weekend after weekend, and keep enjoying it? I think we kept going and kept enjoying it because each of us did the other the special favor of respecting each other and the sport.
I tried very hard never to get discouraged and never to give up and never to give away any point. I tried to make my brother work his butt off for every point he got. Even though he was clearly better, I tried very hard to give him a tough competitive experience - on every point. For his part, he paid me the respect of not giving me any points. He tried to shut me out in every game we played. He tried to get every point. Why do I call that respect? Why did that enable me to enjoy the experience of playing him? Because, with him trying to get every point, I could be legitimately proud of each point I got. I could feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Okay, so maybe I couldn’t beat him. But a 15-10 game was a real accomplishment for me. In a sense, I beat him that game. I played above my ability that game, and he played below his. In a 15-2 game, he could feel satisfied, and I would feel defeated.

Assuming our typical game would end about 15-7, there was a kind of victory for me every time I could get 8 or more points and, conversely, a victory for my brother every time he could hold be below 7. If he had chosen, instead, to give me some points, to work hard sometimes but not others, and to let most games end up 15-12, where would any satisfaction be? Where would the spirit of competition have gone? Where would respect and satisfaction and disappointment and accomplishment have gone? How could I feel good about even beating him if I suspected he let me win or gave me ten point while playing at 50% effort? Do you feel good winning a game when the other team lets you win? Do you feel good losing by just ten when you know the other team could have beaten you by forty (but they didn’t try)? I think the answers to these questions are pretty obvious when you stop to think about them and about the real meaning of sports. It is a lot more humiliating to find yourself playing against someone not doing his best than to play against a star and get your butt kicked. Yet in every league during every season, you read about coaches –
even in pro sports — grumbling about some other coach running up the score.

WIMPS! Grow up, guys. Have enough respect for yourself and for others to do them the favor of playing your best the whole time. Have enough respect for them to beat them by fifty if you can, and enable them to feel the joy of bringing the score down to forty-five near the end - because of their efforts, not because you let them. And finally, respect yourself enough never to want a score to be respectable — as a result of early substitutions or diminished effort or outright gifts. If you’re a real athlete, you want the score to reflect the actual circumstances of the contest.

There’s no humiliation in losing by fifty to a team that is actually sixty points better than you. In fact, there’s some joy to be found in a game like that, unless they give you ten unearned. Is the concept clear enough? I don’t care if we’re playing checkers or tidily winks, do me the favor of beating me by as much as you can and understand the respect I am giving you when I try to beat you by as much as I can.

That’s the only way sports are fun for me. What about you?

• My Response:

Let me be as clear as I can on this one. This is as stupid an article as I’ve seen in awhile. It’s narrowminded and its lesson, that maximum performance is more important than ANYTHING else in the world, is at the root of some of our bigger social problems. I felt like I was reading an Ayn Rand novel…nothing matters except the “best”, screw any compassion or reverence for other people.

The ONLY thing I agreed with was the distaste the author had for coaches who complain when they lose by huge margins. To me, even if their complaint has some foundation, coaches are often only trying to distract attention from their team’s mediocrity or they’re allowing anger and personal pride to destroy situations that could be used as teaching/coaching moments.

The rest is crap. Especially at the lower levels. With 6th graders, should I press, play my top 5 all game and win by 75 points so that I can honor the other team?

• What about the other 7 guys on my team?
• What about working on areas of the game that need improvement?
• What about the kids on both teams whose parents DON’T teach them that its ok to humiliate and degrade other people and then twist it around to make it seem virtuous?

I’m also tired of quotes I read to the effect of: “I’m just SO competitive; I’ve never allowed myself to lose at anything, even lawn darts.” I hope those guys don’t play tackle football with their kids in the front yard on the weekends. CPS would have a field day.

I try to teach that it is NOT acceptable to give less than your best mental or physical effort when you’re on the court.

That doesn’t mean you have to win by 60. That’s not always beneficial anyway. For instance, I could press an inferior team and steal the inbound pass every time, but it won’t improve my teams zone coverage which will be critical down the line. I’m not saying to put yourself in a position to lose, but if your team is up by 25 in the 4th there are things you can work on that are important and demand effort but don’t humiliate other people, do it.

The author says that its not life or death and that’s true, but the lessons we teach as coaches impact how our young men and women view the world.

The message here is that domination and intimidation trump compassion and respect. That might be true on Wall Street, but its still not a message I want to send. If I beat a team by 30 instead of 50 but all my players gave a great effort in the areas I identified as important, I’ll be proud. And I guarantee that 99 times out of 100 the opponent won’t say: “screw you, loser, you should have beat us by more, you jerks”.

Self respect and respect from others is earned through EFFORT , not degradation.

Other Coaching Philosophy Articles

• 3 tips for running multiple offenses and defenses
• Ask the Coach - Q and A part III
• Ask The Coach V
• Being Prepared vs. Over-Coaching: A Fine Line
• Competitive Basketball Practices: Q&A
• Motivating Players
• One Step to Improved Shooting - Ray Allen
• Running Up the Score
• Scouting