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United States News Title: Ethics Dunce: The Gwinneth Football League (Lawrenceville, Georgia) Combine political correctness, the thoughts of Chairman Mao, incompetent administrators, kids and football, and this is the disgusting mess you get. The Gwinnett Football League, a children’s sports program, allegedly fined one of its teams $500 and suspended its coach after an 8-year-old playing for the Lawrenceville Black Knights intercepted a pass and ran it back for a touchdown. In a normal sports league, run by sane people, where victory and achievement are appreciated, encouraged and celebrated rather than being stifled to allow losers to preserve their self-esteem when what they need is to be motivated to play better, the child would have had a joyful, memorable childhood experience. Not in the Gwinnett Football League, however. The young player was to learn that his failure to realize that taking advantage of his opponent’s poor play was considered bad sportsmanship in this Bizarro World* league —cruel, unkind, psychically scarring—and would result in his team being fined and his coach being suspended. You see, the touchdown constituted an infraction of league rules, because the GFL has a so-called “mercy rule” that prohibits a team from throttling a weaker squad by more than 33 points. The parents of the child protested that their son had no idea he should do. Miss the throw intentionally? Run it back the wrong way for an opposition touchdown? Beg the other team to forgive him? The parents of the rest of the team’s players insisted that the fine and suspension were far too severe….for, you know, playing football in a football game. Being fined and penalized for breaching an appallingly misconceived rule that nobody with the brains of an egret thought through? Yes, I think that’s a reasonable cause for complaint. Hilariously, the president of the league, who must have risen to his place in life after his planned career as pin setter didn’t pan out, told the media that news reports about the reason the team was fined were false. Erik Richards said the team was fined because it made a “mockery of the game” in other respects besides running up the score: laying on the ground, running off the field and mocking the other players. He explained that the penalty for violating the mercy rule is “only” $100. What the league needs is a fine for incompetent and irresponsible oversight of a kids football league: 1. It is silly, embarrassing and dangerous to have any sporting event continue with one team not allowed to score. Football is called a competition for a reason. If you are going to have a mercy rule–and I think they are a terrible policy, always: kids sports are about learning to lose as much as anything else—then you end the game at that point. You don’t keep playing. Of course you don’t keep playing.No wonder the players on the team misbehaved. What are they supposed to do? Lying down on the field seems perfectly reasonable if the idiots who run your league are going to fine you for doing what you are on the field to do: score. 2. People who don’t understand the basics of football should not run football leagues, even those played by puppies or fleas. A touchdown is 6 points. If there is a 33 point mercy rule and a team has a 32 point lead, either a) invoke the rule at 28, the point at which any touchdown will exceed 33 or b) make it clear that the rule will be triggered by the next score, whether it is 6, 3, or 2 points (it is impossible to score one point by itself in football), or c) give the referees discretion to device when the rule should apply. A rule that a team is supposed to keep playing competitively with a 32 point lead but is acting in an unsportsmanlike manner once it scores more than a single additional point when any score will be more than a single point is so dumb it hurts my brain to think about it. 3. The Knights made a mockery of the game? How is it possible to make a mockery of a football game mocking itself with a rule requiring a team to keep playing when it will be fined for scoring a touchdown? The idiotic mercy rule and its application make a mockery of not only the game, but sports, competition, America, common sense, fairness, justice and the cosmos.
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#1. To: A K A Stone (#0)
...Erik Richards said the team was fined because it made a “mockery of the game” in other respects besides running up the score: laying on the ground, running off the field and mocking the other players. He explained that the penalty for violating the mercy rule is “only” $100. Insanity run amok. Message from Leftist-in-Charge to Amerika: "LEARN TO BE LOOOOSERS!! IT's only fair!"
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