Can being too good at your job get you fired?
July 21, 2009 by StaffPosted in: Uncategorized
A high school girls’ basketball coach was fired after he said he would not apologize for badly beating another team.
Covenant School in Dallas recently defeated Dallas Academy in girls basketball 100-0.
After the game, Covenant, a private Christian school, posted a statement on its Web site regretting the outcome of the shutout: “It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition.” The statement was signed by the school’s headmaster and board chairman.
Covenant Coach Micah Grimes sent an e-mail to The Dallas Morning News that said he didn’t agree with his school’s statement.
He wrote: “I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.”
The school’s headmaster would not comment when asked whether Grimes’ firing was connected to his statement to the newspaper.
The score at the half was 59-0. A parent who attended the game said Covenant continued to make 3-pointers even in the fourth quarter.
Dallas Academy has eight girls on its varsity team and about 20 girls in its high school. It hasn’t had a win in the last four seasons. The school specializes in teaching students with “learning differences” such as short attention spans or dyslexia.
The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools doesn’t have a “mercy” rule for girls basketball. However, the association’s director, Edd Burleson said “a golden rule” should have applied in this contest.
According to Burleson, the losing team “showed much more character than the coach that allowed that score to get out of hand. It’s up to the coach to control the outcome.”
Since this case involves a personnel decision which an employer is keeping private, there are details we don’t know — such as exactly why Grimes was fired.
But the situation does raise several questions. Organized sports can provide a means to teach children and teens useful workplace skills, such as teamwork. Do you agree with the fired coach’s decision to allow the score to reach 100-0? Do you agree with the headmaster’s apology? And would sending an e-mail to a newspaper, disputing his boss’ statement, be insubordinate enough to merit firing?
Let us know in the Comments Box below.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I do not agree with firing of the coach. If the other coach felt things were getting out of hand with the score he should have discussed things. I do not see anywhere in the article about any other games where the other team took pity on them.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
It sounds as if the losing team was so bad that if the winning team had purposely refrained from earning points, it would have been painfully obvious. How humiliating would that have been for the defeated team? At least they lost with dignity. Sorry, but life is not fair.
I can’t help but wonder if the same apology would have been issued had it been the boys team?
Based on the facts presented, Dallas Academy appears to be the winner when it comes to sportsmanship and professionalism. Neither the headmaster nor the coach displayed good judgement. Neither should have chastised the other publicly. If dismissal is the policy for that offense, then both should be fired.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
If the score was an issue, and it was that big a shut out, then school officials should have done something at the half. You cannot ask the players of the winning team to just sit back and do nothing. If the losing school has that much trouble with their athletic program, maybe they need to re-think it.
Firing the coach is not an approprite solution to this issue. Whatever became of the reality that there are winners and losers in this world. Life is not fair and God did not ever promise us that it would be.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
My son played tournament soccer for several years. There were times when we were both ahead by a bit and behind by a bit. The general rule of thumb is that if you are clearly out playing a team, the winning coach may tell his kids that they can only shoot lefty etc. My son also played for a coach who believed that if a team is on a field they should expect to win or lose, he would play a bad team the same way he would a good team. However, if the score was too bad, he would switch his players a bit, put a forward in as defense etc. I really think the coach in this case could have switched it up a bit.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Oh please – why would they put those teams against eachother in the first place? With no rules in place for that type of situation that coach did nothing wrong. The loosing coach could have conceded at any time. Why is it the fault of the winning coach?
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
A game played fairly is a game played fairly. Why is this different than a 21-0 shutout baseball game? Not allowing a team to score more points because of the other teams non-scoring is like crying foul. That’s called bending the rules. Every game has a winner and a loser and the score is based on performance. In a spelling bee where one contestant got every word right and the other got every word wrong, should the first now misspell some words because of that?
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:05 pm
WOW this is wrong on several levels but it is not the coach’s or players’ faults. The coach’s response seems to be mainly aimed at making sure his girls don’t feel bad about performing at their best. That is exactly what he should do. It’s part of his role. It’s the other coach’s job to make sure his girls feel that they did their best despite teh score and if they have not won a game in 4 years I’m sure that this loss was not all that devistating. That said I do hope that Coach Grimes told his players to make a lot of passes, work the ball around and generally kill some time each time down the court. But other than that he did his job as did his team.
The real fault lies with the league not putting in a mercy rule. This has gone on for 4 years with this team get a clue! As for the firing, without all the details it’s difficult to know if it was right or wrong. Going public with your disagreement is never a good thing and can get you fired. That was bad judgment but borderline.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:33 am
If they do not have a rule in place on when or where to stop a game, then how would you know where to say stop??? At 20-0, 50-0, 100-0? The ref could have called the game at any time. The coach from the other team could have called the game. Why is it the fault of the winning coaches team and why should he have to apologize? No, the coach shouldn’t have been fired.
If they wanted to behave in a Christ-like way, maybe the coach from the loosing team should have called the game, talked to the winning coach to see if he and his team would be willing to spend the rest of the game time doing a scrimage and teaching the loosing team some strategies to help them play better next time.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:37 am
Thank you Brenda! There are winners and losers and these days our sports activities for kids want to eliminate any hard feelings to the precious little kids so that they won’t feel bad…so no score is kept to ‘protect’ them. That’s half the problem with the young adults today. They think they’re winners when they’re really losers that need to step it up. Even mediocre performance is acceptable these days and they have been conditioned to feel entitled. These teams should not have been in the same league and the ones who fired that coach need to take some responsibility in that.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:01 am
Coach Grimes stated in his e-mail to the newspaper “My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent..”. However, if his team was still putting up 3-pointers after the half, leading 59-0, how is that not running up the score? He could have had his team work on their passing and ball movement, and provided them a lesson in compassion for an obviously outmatched opponent.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:44 am
I’ve been on both sides of this situation as a coach of soccer, baseball and basketball and one thing I always made sure of was that my team respected the other team and as the old addage goes “treated them as they would want to be treated”. Yes we have a winner and a loser in any sporting event, but what you do not want to happen is for teh kids on teh losing team to feel like “losers”! They need to maintain their self-respect as much as humanly possible and if they performed to the best of their ability they are not losers and that message better get across to them. It is a coaches job to make sure they see it as a game and that whether you are on the winning or losing end you tried to perform at your best and if you did you are not a loser the other team was simply better. If coach Grimes and his players treated the other team with respect and simply played their game, maybe easing up some, no taunting or laughing, then this is no worse experience than losing by 25 points or 50 points it’s a loss but those kids are not losers because they lost a sporting event. If you want to see this in real life watch the movie “We Are Marshall” I think you will see how this all should work. Also, NO WAY Grimes should have lost his job, morally, ethically or legally
July 24th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Did the coach put in the 2nd or 3rd string, or permit the 1st string to play the entire game?
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:13 pm
What a failure in leadership! The people that should be looked at are the headmaster and the board chairman. It is never a good leadership practice to undercut your subordinate managers, especially without fleshing out all the facts. It would be interesting to see if these “executives” discussed the situation with the head coach before posting. Did they consider the effect of their post on the girls who played on the team? The post was just a judgmental (and non-Christian) slap in the face to the coach and the students. No facts about the league not having a “mercy rule”, no mention that the refs or the other coach suggested forfeiting at the half, no mention that the head master or chairman told the coach to do anything else but play the game.
“After the game, Covenant, a private Christian school, posted a statement on its Web site regretting the outcome of the shutout: “It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition.” The statement was signed by the school’s headmaster and board chairman.”
Too many times I see top management undercut their managers just because they have an over sized opinion of themselves. Any executive who does this without checking out the facts or discussing it with their subordinates and weighing possible consequences should be replaced. Why are they executives in the first place? What skills and abilities are expected from them at the table?