Covenant Academy fires coach

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By BARRY HORN / The Dallas Morning News
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The Covenant School fired its girls’ basketball coach Sunday, the same day he distributed an e-mail and posted on a Web site that he disagreed with the school’s headmaster as well as the school’s chairman of the board, who have publicly apologized for Covenant’s 100-0 victory over Dallas Academy.

Kyle Queal, Covenant’s head of school, said former coach Micah Grimes “now only represents himself.” Queal said he could not answer if the firing was a direct result of his e-mail and posting.

Grimes’ e-mail and posting said, “In response to the statement posted on The Covenant School Web site, I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls’ basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed,” Micah Grimes wrote in an email sent to The Dallas Morning News. “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.”
 
There is no honor in beating a team 100-0. This coach deserves to be fired. Stall the ball for 2 quarters if you have to, but there is no need in scoring that many points and embarrassing your opponent.
 
In some respects, though, it seemed as though some effort WAS made to lay back since the article talked about the three-point shots. Can you only imagine what the score would have been if they would have simply kept going to the basket for easy lay-ups?

My guess is that it was the coaches response to the school announcement that got him canned, not the century-mark shut-out. And, unfortunately, we also cannot rule out issues outside of the school realm with this giving the school the 'easy out' if the dismissal moved to litigation...
 
Covenant was not shooting threes exclusively. The point guard for Covenant scored 48 points, most of which were layups from steals she made while Covenant half-court pressed. They only stopped pressing when they reached the century mark.

There is no excuse for the way Covenant's "coach" behaved during the game. From his subsequent comments, he seemingly doesn't "get" what sportmanship is. What is most ironical is Covenant is a Christian private school, thus begging the question, "What would Jesus do?" in a game such as that.
 
he was asking to get fired. to say that you disagree with school officials, and you won't apologize for beating another team 100-0 is ridiculous. i feel bad for most everyone involved in this, particularly the players. but i don't feel bad for the coach. he should have stepped up and not let it get out of hand. there is no honor and integrity in beating a team 100-0.
 
Yeah, you just don't disrespect your superiors publicly without repercussions. I mostly feel bad for the girls on both sides.
 
My first question is why did the administration of the school schedule such a missmatch? That is not the fault of the coach. He was told to play the game, and he did. He never should have been put in the position to take a highly competitive team up against a school that only had something like 20 girls in the entire school to field a team from. Unless of course, he is in charge of scheduling, then I appologize to the administration for my wrong assumption. Now what the coach seems to have done wrong if the reports are correct is put in a press defense when the game was already out of hand. Have the team play hard defense at the basket and let as much time run off the clock between possessions as possible. I don't fault him for shutting out the other team, but there's no excuse for running up the score when they could have been draining the clock. Publicly criticizing his boss for the appology is an whole other matter.
 
This is very similar to the game in which the high school coach allowed Epiphanny Prince to score 113 points against an opponent. Coaches are not there just to teach lessons in basketball, but lessons in life. Allowing antics like that is a disgrace to the profession of coaching. Mack Brown is a great example of a coach who refuses to run up the score on opponents. Bob Stoops runs up the score to improve his team's chances of getting more votes and a higher ranking in the BCS. There is something to be said for teaching your players that there is no need in humiliating your opponent.
 
I coached at a competitive small HS in South Texas a few years ago. The head coach would never have run a score up that way. We played against some very mismatched teams. We played all out in the 1st half, then subbed liberally in the 2nd, and never pressed when doing so.

We never asked the girls to stop playing hard, but when you put in Freshmen and older girls who were primarily warm practice bodies, well, mistakes were made and the score suddenly didn't continue getting out of hand. I fail to understand how a coach wouldn't do exactly this unless he is specifically trying to humiliate his opponents.
 
While the coach's post game comments and emails got the result that he should have, it was not his job to make that game competitive.

BTW, Jody Conradt (Basketball Royalty) once scored something like 85 points herself in a high school game.
 
I've lost games by scores of 112-36, 88-28, and 99-27. It would have been ludicrous for the winning coach to get fired or for our coach to complain about the margins of victory.

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