You’ve Got to Know the Score to Keep From Piling It On

An older brother of mine once offered me a dollar to drink a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Being all of 5 or 6 at the time, I fell for it. At least the first gulp.

I learned two lessons that day. One, if you want your eyes to pop out of their sockets like cartoon characters on TV, slug down Tabasco. Two, never underestimate the power of a bribe.

It is lesson No. 2 that makes today’s column possible. A couple of weeks ago, Rancho Alamitos beat Bolsa Grande, 61-0. The next night, Costa Mesa beat Laguna Beach, 65-19. We offered a Coke and a candy bar to the reader who wrote in with the most insightful, creative response to the “running up the score” issue.

Amazing what people will do for a free sugar buzz.

Third place went to former Loara Athletic Director Ray Moore, now AD at Diamond Bar High. Ray wrote that coaches with huge leads should “substitute early and often and run plays from tackle to tackle, or simple dives. This way your kids play hard and learn something.”

True enough. Ray earned bonus points for calling to mind Herb Hill, the former Loara coach who probably would have eaten his clipboard before running up the score. A fine role model, indeed.

Second place went to Thomas M. Terry of Santa Ana, with this perspective:

“I have been a Nebraska Cornhusker football fan for over 20 years and have read stories about Nebraska running up the score. What the coaching staff at Nebraska does is use its third, fourth and fifth string. In one game this year a sixth-string quarterback scored a touchdown . . . I would hope high school coaches would do the same.”

Now this is creative. A sixth string? Around these parts, Thomas, the sixth string would amount to the school’s hall monitors. Because of declining enrollment, some coaches are happy just to have a backup for each position. Perhaps Nebraska would be willing to loan out a string or two.

Mike Collins of Seal Beach didn’t offer any super innovative ideas but earned a mention by virtue of his vocabulary:

“I’m certain,” Collins writes, “that my suggestions will be anathema among all those real tough football coaches. . . . “

Or anyone without instant dictionary access.

Finally, our winner: Rick Falk, girls’ basketball coach at Tustin High.

Rick churned out four pages of witty, inspirational prose--most of which ended up in the shredder because of space limitations.

An excerpt:

“Dear Barbie: I need to stop reading your column on Sunday mornings before I go to church because I wind up sitting in church carrying on imaginary conversations with you instead of listening to the preacher.

“Why do these incidents happen? I believe they happen when coaches become so involved with personalities--usually the opposing coach--that they forget about the kids they’re humiliating. I admit there are coaches I would love to really stick it to, and sometimes I find myself after the game not being too proud of my behavior. What stops me most often is looking into the eyes of those kids losing by 30 points already and seeing the pain exhibited there.

“The final story is about winning and losing--not by how much. I think coaches who pour it on don’t take into consideration how long it takes a team, a school, and sometimes a sport to recover from such a beating.

“Probably the most notorious case was the (Inglewood) Morningside-South Torrance game a couple of years ago when Lisa Leslie scored 102 points in the first half and missed a national (single-game scoring) record because South Torrance refused to play the second half. Morningside pressed the whole first half. . . . Its goal had nothing to do with winning and losing--merely setting the record so high that some other school will have to beat up its opponent that much worse to break the record next time.

“So who gets in trouble? The South Torrance coach, who is removed from his job for pulling his team off the court. Had I been in his position--down to four players, one of whom was injured (this is the creative part you requested), I would have done one of two things:

“1) Have my players foul players other than Lisa Leslie until my remaining players had all fouled out, thus forcing the game to end.

“2) Have my players pass the ball directly to Lisa Leslie from out of bounds saying, “How many is enough? You want 200? 300? Just let us know when you get tired of this.”

Bravo, Rick. I’m forwarding your ideas to the folks at Morningside. Meanwhile, let me know what you’d like with that Coke. Snickers? Baby Ruth? Or, perhaps more fittingly, a box of Good & Plenty?

In any case, save half for your preacher. You need to make up for your lack of attention.