the real tragedy of Sean Taylor....

This article does not have much to do with anything related to local sports in and around the Louisville area. However, there is a very sad lesson to be learned from the Sean Taylor tragedy that needs to be discussed.

If you had followed the career of Sean Taylor you know about the trouble he has had not just in the years growing up in some very rough areas of Miami, FL; but also even the problems the surrounded him when he had reached the pinnacle of his success to play a sport at the highest level in the NFL. To sum up in a very quick form, Taylor had problems in the NFL almost from day 1. Some of those issues were minor - such as skipping out on the NFL's rookie symposium, for which he was fined $25,000. There was also a $17,000 fine for spitting at Tampa Bay's Michael Pittman during a playoff game two years ago.

The most serious incident occurred in June 2005, when he was arrested and charged with felony assault after authorities said he pointed a gun at three men outside a house in West Perrine, a rough neighborhood south of Miami, and accused them of stealing two all-terrain vehicles from him.

After a plea bargain, which put him on probation and included community service and charitable gift donations, he still was not the model citizen.

The real change in Taylor's behavior came after the birth of his daughter. That single event changed him in ways that only that event could have. After the birth of his child, he did become the model citizen, both on and off the field. He became humble in his off-field dealings with the media and his coaches. Joe Gibbs, (Head Coach for the Washington Redskins), once said to media, that Taylor would cradle the baby in his arms as he carried her into Redskin Park and "you just knew how much that baby meant to him. I could see (that) maturing process (that happens) when you get a first child."

In the 2006 season, (the same year his daughter was born in May of that year), not only did Taylor's demeanor and attitude change, but also his level of play jumped up. That season he not only was named the Redskin's Defensive player of the year, but also made and played in the NFL Pro Bowl. He also started distancing himself from some very bad, and criminal "friends" that he had known growing up. This was a clear indication that he was changing, and for the better. During some Pro-Bowl game interview, Taylor was quoted as saying:

"I just take this job very seriously. It's almost like you play a kid's game for a king's ransom. And if you don't take it serious enough, eventually one day you're going to say, 'Oh, I could have done this; I could have done that.'

"So I just say, 'I'm healthy right now, I'm going into my fourth year and why not do the best that I can?' And that's whatever it is, whether it's eating right or training myself right, whether it's studying harder - whatever I can do to better myself."

At the time, media people claimed he was "downplaying" the importance of the Pro Bowl. Personally, I think he was putting football and his career in the right perspective.

The real tragedy of Sean Taylor's death is that he will never get to see the one factor in his life that was his turning point to his own maturation ever again. His daughter.

TV sports giving the "shaft" to fans

This past weekend, for the third time this season, UL broadcast its weekly football game on ESPNU. That in and of itself is not worth noting. But what is worth noting is that in the Louisville area, only 10% of all households actually get ESPNU as an option on their cable TV service offered by Insight Communications. That does not include the satellite TV people, however, because I could not find out those numbers.

I happen to be one of the 90% that does not get this channel. Why? Because, quite frankly, it is stupid for me to pay a monthly charge for digital TV service and then an additional monthly charge on top of that, all in addition to my current monthly cable bill, expressly JUST to get a single channel. No matter HOW bad I want to watch the game. Or in this specific instance, the 3 games a year I want to watch.

This all started me thinking about how in recent years, sports TV broadcasting has really started screwing the "Top Row Joe" sports fan. And it is NOT just restricted to ESPN only.

As a result I started doing some research to see just how bad this problem really was and to see if it was just me that was being unfair. When I came across this article written by a CNNMoney columnist.

Cable's Fight with NFL, Big 10 leave fans in the dark

If you read the linked article the author does a wonderful job of outlining just how insidious the two sides are about your viewing dollar. And this will only get worse. More and more we will see big business entities like the NFL and NCAA conferences venture into the area of media broadcasting. And that will put more and more fans into the streets, (literally), trying to find a venue to watch their teams or favorite sports.

But as the article points out, there actually IS a solution, IF the cable companies and the sports businesses want to work it out. That being what MLB did with the cable companies and worked out a joint venture partnership, where the cable companies literally have ownership in the channel broadcast. And, as noted in the article, the cable companies now have a vested interest in providing that channel as part and parcel to the BASIC cable packages offered. If you do not believe that to be true, then read the article where it points out that Comcast was VERY quick to provide "free" to basic cable subscribers the "Golf Channel". (And personally I can think of NOTHING more boring that 24/7 of golf. But hey, that's just me.)

So, there is a solution. The problem is, it will likely never be decided by the cable and sports entities. It will likely be decided by Washington and the FCC. If that happens, I guarantee you that the sports fan like you and me will end up getting even more screwed in the process than we are now. And those powerful cable TV and sports lobbyists will see to that.

UL MUST win vs USF for bowl bid?

I have been looking at UL's chances of getting a bowl bid if UL goes 6-6 this season, and quite frankly, it is NOT good. I think UL MUST reach 7 wins to go to a bowl game this year.

Before I explain why I think that, let's step back and look at the six BCS conference bowl tie-in's. Including the BCS bowl game, but not the BCS champ game.

Big East: 5 bowl games
Pac-10: 6 bowl games
Big 12: 8 bowl games
Big 10: 7 bowl games
SEC: 8 bowl games
ACC: 8 bowl games

So that accounts for 42 of the total of 62 spots from the 31 total post season bowl games played, NOT including the BCS championship game, of course.

Given those tie-in's right now it looks like from the Big East 4 teams are already sitting with 7 or more wins, 100% assuring themselves of a post-season bowl somewhere. Those teams are, (in no order), WVU, UConn, UC, and USF. And right now Rutgers is ahead of UL in the overall standing with a 6-4 record and only has to play Pitt and UL to finish the season.

The best shot that UL has of going to a post-season bowl game though, may NOT be in their control. If RU beats Pitt on saturday, and moves to a 7-4 record, even if they lose to UL, if UL does not have 7 wins, then UL will NOT get a Big East post season bowl bid, because of the NCAA and Big East conference rule that stipulates that all bowl tie-in bids MUST be filled by a team with 7 or more wins before a team with only 6 wins can be considered.

That means that the game vs USF this saturday for UL is an absolute must win game for the Cards. Or, the Cards have to hope that Pitt somehow finds a way to beat Rutgers on the Scarlet Knights home field, or UL's post-season bowl chances are all but zero.

But let's say that UL does finish the season 6-6, and that RU finishes 7-5 and UL does not get one of the 5 BE bowl game bids.

Is there any chance that UL might get an "at-large" bid to a bowl game somewhere? The answer is yes, but that is a very slim hope.

The best chance, I think that UL has of getting any type of "at large" bid to a bowl game if they are only 6-6 is IF one of the other conferences is unable to fill all of their bowl slot tie-in's by not having enough bowl eligible teams. The problem is, as of right now, there are three other conferences that even have a chance at finishing without enough bowl eligible teams. The Pac-10, the ACC and the Big-12. However, there is a wrench in that argument. The Big-10 with only 7 bowl tie-in's have a total of ten currently bowl eligible teams. Which leaves the Big-10 looking for a possible bowl berth for 3 of their teams. AND the SEC with 8 bowl tie-in's also have a total of ten currently bowl eligible teams. Even if you figure that the SEC and the Big-10 will both get two teams playing in the BCS bowl games, that still leaves 3 teams from those conferences, (1 from the SEC and 2 from the Big-10), that will be looking also for an "at-large" bowl bid somewhere.

The least likely conference to finish without any bowl eligible teams, is the ACC. With 8 bowl game tie-in's, the ACC is sitting with 7 current bowl eligible teams. However, both NC State and Maryland will play each other the last game of the season, and with both teams currently sitting at 5-5, one of them WILL finish at least 6-6 on the season so that fills all of their slots.

With 6 bowl game tie-in's, the PAC-10 is sitting with only 5 current bowl eligible teams in the conference. But UCLA, (currently 5-5, like UL), has two games remaining with both of those games against two top 11 teams in form of Oregon and USC. So it is VERY possible that the PAC-10 would not be able to fill all of their bowl slots. (There is an outside shot that Washington State may get to bowl eligibility, but that is a VERY long shot.) As a result, the PAC-10 could end up 1 short on their tie-in's. Which bowl may open up? Probably the Armed Services bowl, which pits the #6 picked PAC-10 team against a MWC opponent. Which at this point, looks like it would be Utah. Bowl executives are not real keen on rematching teams from the regular season, unless it has some sort of major mass TV market appeal. And let's face it, UL vs Utah does not grab TV headlines. If the MWC opponent does turn out to be some other MWC team, then MAYBE they might consider UL. But probably not, only because UL's record would be so poor, compared to other matchups they could get that might have more "regional" appeal, since it is played in Fort Worth, TX. And I think that with the Big-10 looking for a home for some of their schools, I would look for the Big-10 to make a play here. Especially with the PAC-10 and Big-10 relationship.

The Big-12 is like the ACC right now. While the Big-12 has only 6 eligible teams to fill 8 slots, both Kansas St and Oklahoma St look like they will get to 6 wins. Especially Ok-St since they play an awful Baylor team as one of their last two games. K-State would be the one real question mark out of the B-12, but again, with the SEC and the B-10 looking for a home for one of their 3 member schools, UL is probably out of luck here. And completely out of options.

I just do NOT see any set of circumstances where a 6-6 UL team gets a bowl bid this season. UL's only chance to get a bowl bid, I think is to win BOTH of their last two games vs USF and RU.

Which means then that this saturday's game vs the South Florida Bulls in Tampa is an absolute MUST win scenario.

Too many bowls, or too few good teams?

It is that time of year when the college football fan starts thinking about where their favorite team is heading for a post-season bowl game. As result, it is time to bring up that yearly debate about who is actually "deserving" of a bowl game every year. The reason that is an annual debate because every year, some team, (often a team from a non-automatic BCS bid conference), with a very good W-L record gets left out of a post-season appearance for a team that just BARELY has a .500 record.

I do not want to get into the debate on whether the NCAA should sanction a post-season playoff vs a bowl game format to determine a national championship. That argument is so old my grandfather can argue the merits of both. And he has been dead for 20 years. Although I will say this much about it. The weakest argument I have ever heard for or against a playoff, is the one that some pro-bowl system supporters use saying that the regular season is a playoff. That is such a crap argument it is not even funny. And here is why. In a playoff system, you lose one game and you are out of the tournament. In the regular season, you can win every one of your games, go completely undefeated, and NEVER even be considered for a national title. So, how can you go undefeated and not even compete for a national title, if the regular season is equal to a playoff? That makes no sense. And that brings me back to the original point of this blog entry. The issue of a bad teams playing in bowl games versus good teams sitting at home watching.

The issue for me, and the one that I despise the NCAA for allowing, is the one I alluded to above. That a barely .500 W-L team has the ability to even be considered for a post-season bowl game. The last time I checked, if you are sitting at .500, that is a "push", and you are NOT a winning team. Prior to the NCAA allowing for 12 regular season games to be played, the rule was that in any given year where a school played 12 games, they had to have 7 wins to be considered bowl eligible. That was against a normal regular season schedule of 11 games, where it was required that 6 wins be considered for bowl eligibility. It was only after the Big-10 and primarily the SEC, with support from the B-12 lobbied the NCAA to change that rule such that even with 12 games a 6 win season is considered "bowl eligible" now. That means that instead of a team having the possibility of finishing the season including their bowl win @ or above .500, if they finished 6-5 or 7-5, now they can lose their bowl game and finish with a LOSING record and still be considered as having a "successful" season. (Assuming a 6-6 team loses its bowl game, to finish 6-7.) What a crock!

The NCAA is supposed to be not only the organization that does what is in the best interest of the athlete-student, (BTW, sometime in the future I will write about my distinction between athlete-students and student-athletes, because in today's college sporting world there IS a difference), but also the NCAA is supposed to have a responsibility to protect what is in the best interest of the sport itself. In this case, the NCAA should have stuck by the original rule that a team is NOT eligible for post-season bowl participation in the 12 game regular season, UNLESS it can reach a 7 win total. Period, end of story.

But guess what would happen then. We just might have had some teams from conferences like the SEC, Big-10 or Big-12 actually NOT GET TO PLAY IN BOWL GAME!!! Oh, the horror of it!! To actually possibly see a team from the Sun Belt, WAC or MAC take a bowl spot from the BCS conferences? Not a chance! That would be fiscal blasphemy!

As I mentioned before though, this is not about protecting or promoting good football, or rewarding teams who are deserving. This is all about dollars. And the big conferences are NOT going to give up dollars easily to any other conference not in their "circle of friends", or "favorite five", (to use a cellular phone term.)

So, we as football fans are stuck watching bowl games where a team like Miss State, (and do not get me wrong, I think what Croom has done there is GREAT for football), will get paired up with a school like Boise State, Air Force or Utah, who will blow them off the field and just be a boring game to watch, AND end up finishing with a losing record.

But let's face facts. The post-season bowl format is NOT about a good football game, or even just good football. It has almost NOTHING to do with football at all. Bowl games are all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$. And big dollars at that. The money generated by post-season bowl games funds most of all of the schools other athletic endeavors in other sports, especially those driven by Title IX. The only other sport to generate as much if not more money is men's college basketball. So, let's not even go down the road about whether bowl games, and the participating teams are about football...they are NOT. And never have been.

Big East....at it again?....

Ok, the Big East this week announced that beginning in the 2009 season, that all 16 member basketball schools will be invited to play at Madison Square Garden, (MSG), as part of the post-season Big East Conference tournament.

Is it just me, or do others also feel this is just completely ignorant. The only reason I can see the BE doing this is to placate the non-football schools who have complained from day one that they are losing money because of the strength of the conference, and not being able to get in to the post-season tournaments.

Well, guess what. College sports is NOT kindergarten playgrounds. There are supposed to be winners and losers. And if you can not compete well enough why should you get any type of charity for having a losing conference record? Here is a thought. How about actually GETTING BETTER!!

Tennis scandal....but this is serious....

It was reported yesterday that Germany's Tommy Haas may have been poisoned before his Davis Cup match, where he pulled out of the match against Russia's Mikhail Youzhny.

Haas before the match complained of vomiting and stomach problems, and forfeited his match, citing that he was too ill to play.

If this report turns out to be true, then professional tennis has just become the single biggest joke in all of professional sports. And IMHO, the Davis Cup should be immediately, and possibly permanently, be terminated.

This may seem like an extreme notion or response, but when athletes lives come in danger, NOT from playing their respective sport, but because of the simple fact that they are an athlete, then the sport itself has become WAY too serious about itself. This is a GAME people! We are not curing cancer and people's lives are not at stake due to the outcome of a game, match or set. And the whole idea OF sports is that there are winners and losers. But the cool thing is that you can shake hands walk off and play another day. No one is supposed to get hurt. Sports are, in fact, supposed to be a way for us to have gentile conflict over, and not life and death situations.

Well, that's my stance on the issue anyway.

college basketball season mirroring football?

The 2007-2008 college basketball season has not even really begun and already we have seen some almost unbelievable and shocking upsets. Admittedly, the Mich St and Ohio St losses to two NCAA Division II schools were exhibition games, but come on, we ARE talking about one pre-season top-25 Div I team and the other a team that went to the NCAA national championship game last season. And losing to Div II Grand Valley St and University of Finley on the Spartan's and Buckeye's home floor no less. (BTW, 100 points if you can tell us where University of Finley is located WITHOUT first looking it up. And that is "Finley", not "Finland".)

And now we have seen #22 University of KY lose in Rupp Arena to Div II Gardner-Webb, by no less than 18 points! That is the 3rd worse loss ever by a UK team on their home court in the history of UK basketball. At least the Spartans took double overtime to lose at home by only 3 points, and the Buckeye's were literally decimated by graduation. But, the KY Wildcats, losing at home by 18? In regulation? And never really even seriously in contention for taking a lead in the game, much less getting it close enough to win?

So, here is the question. Are we going to see the same topsy-turvy college basketball season that we have seen in college football this year? And if so, can we really explain it so easily as to say that it is all due to "parity" across the nation in sports?

Is the win by Gardner-Webb over UK as big of an upset as App St was in beating Michigan at home in football?

Ok, I just asked a ton of questions there, so let me give you my take.

First, as to the GW win over UK, I absolutely believe that, that win by GW is completely on par with Appalachian State's victory over Michigan in football. Absolutely. If GW had hit a 3-point shot as a last second buzzer beater, then I would not say that. But in this case, GW not only lead wire-to-wire from the opening tip-off, but almost never had less than an 8 point lead the entire game. And ended blowing UK off of their home court. So I truly believe that the two games are 100% equal as to their respective impacts. I think that win by GW has to rank up there as one of the top 5 biggest upsets in the history of college basketball. Because unlike App St, Gardner-Webb was not predicted to win their conference. (BTW, another 100 points if you can name a single other team from the Sun Mountain Conference. Yeah, like I really knew what conference GW was in before this.)

As to the issue of whether we will see the same type of incredible upsets and topsy-turvy situation in college basketball that we have seen in college football this year. That has yet to be determined. But one thing is for sure. The trend now, is that if I am a Div II coach my players would definitely be believing that they can go into any Div I schools home floor and beat them now. And if I am any kind of Div I HC, I am putting that GW-UK score on the whiteboard during film seesions today, to prove to my team that regardless of how many people are in their ears telling them how good they are, and how they can possibly make millions in the NBA, if they lose to teams like University of Finley, they can kiss that #1 draft position goodbye. (Ok, probably not true, but I would tell the kids that anyway.)

I have to admit, I am not a huge basketball fan. Other than when UL plays, I hardly watch college basketball. But I will this season. Especially if upsets like this continue. If for no other reason than it will be fun to see what shakes out as a result.

Finally as to "parity" in college basketball, I am not so easy to say that is the case. Because let's be real about this for a minute. None of those upsets, even the regular season one by GW over UK, mean anything. Unlike in college football, a team in college basketball can lose 1/3rd of their games, and if they get into the NCAA tournament in March, can actually still become national champions. So, season loses do not mean anything with regard to national championship desire or contention. But what those early upsets and especially those by such obviously lower talented teams do show, is that a lot of Div I teams have a lot of holes in their armor. And those holes are the things worth watching to see if the coach's can fix them before games become VERY important at conference and NCAA tournament time.

So, if a team like GW can beat UK on their home floor, but then make a run in their Division II playoffs and win the Div II national championship, then maybe I will be more apt to say, "Yeah, there is a great deal of parity in college ball today." But, right now, I have to think that this is more a symptom of trying to get kids with one eye on the court and the other on the NBA to show up to play every night, as opposed to kids who have learned how to play together as a team, and within the system that their coach teaches. For me, I think this is more a parallel with how the U.S.A basketball teams underperform time and time again in international and during Olympic Games play. Where foreign teams with obviously lesser talent jump and beat more powerful, more talented and even bigger US teams. I think in college today, kids who look to play the game of basketball as a means to get a 4 year degree, are just that much more focused and determined, than college teams loaded with McD's AA talent who only show up to play when the bright lights of TV are on. And just like in college football, the college game is all about "coaching" now. If you can get 6 to 9 kids to play for 4 years, by the time they reach their senior seasons they CAN make that NCAA tourney run for the national championship.

Video review.....in BASEBALL??...no WAY!

Ok, today during a meeting of MLB's GM's in Orlando FL, a vote was passed to "explore the use of video replay", in MLB. Oh, but ONLY for homerun's mind you.

Could these guys BE any more wrong-headed?

The only good thing about this is that it is a "non-binding" resolution. Meaning that not only will MLB not be implementing it, but also that Bud Selig has final say and does not have any obligation to consider the issue any further. And he should not. Video replay for making calls in baseball does not belong.

Look I get that sometimes an ump may be in the wrong position to make a call, (see Boston's Manny Ramirez's HR non-call during this year's ALCS for example number 1.) But that is part of the game. It is what makes baseball unique. The fractions of an inch, the minutiae of being able to make a call where a ball roughly less than 3 inches in diameter makes surface contact to determine whether the ball is "in play" or "out" is just all part of the game, and the ability or position of the ump is far more critical than some "eye in the sky" camera.

Baseball is a unique and wonderful sport. It is the ONLY sport to have the following:

The only sport where the "defense" actually starts with the ball and to score the "offense" must put the ball in play.

The only sport where time does not matter. (Ok, there is an actual rule that once a pitcher comes set, he has only 20 seconds to throw the ball before the ump can call an intentional balk on him. But other than that, there is NO clock in baseball.)

And the only major sport in America that does NOT use any type of video review replay to make a call by an official.

When the first televised baseball game was played, (a game in 1939 @ Ebbets field between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds), I am sure that even then the few thousand that watched the game thought the umps blew a call that they were SURE they saw on their 2-dimensional TV sets. But since about the early 1970's when TV baseball broadcasts started incorporating replay during the inning changes, more often than not what those replays showed us was just how GOOD the umps really do call a game. Time after time, objective fans who would grouse about a bad call had to rescind their badmouthing when the TV replay actually proved that the ump had gotten the call right.

And that is the point. If the game of baseball was being severely hurt by rash after rash of very poor calls by the umps which had tremendous impact on the outcome of a game and led to a lot of GM's and or even player association complaints or even law suits, then yeah, MAYBE I could see using video replay to suspend disbelief and make the right call. But that is not, and has not ever, been the case. Like I mentioned in another article here, MLB is the ONLY sport where the officials are full time employees of the sport. And that makes MLB umps hone their craft to be very good professionals. By taking the time to train, re-educate and continue learning, MLB assures that it has the best officiating in all of professional sports.

And again, yes, a bad call will happen every now and then, but tell me what sport does NOT have one? Even those that currently employ video review. There are bad calls that change the outcomes of games in every pro sport. Regardless of whether video replay is used or not. But baseball being unique with regard to time and ball possession, does not need that extra incentive. The proof has been evident for quite some time as I noted before.

Baseball is not the most popular professional sport in America. It is not the most glamorous. It probably is at best 3rd in the nation among professional sports fans. Far behind the NFL, and the NBA. And it MIGHT even be less popular than college basketball and/or college football. But major league baseball is THE oldest professional sport in America. It dates back to pre-Civil War times and has seen the best and worst of America history. It is indelibly tied to the fabric of our history. And in keeping with that history, one of the tenets should be that in perpetuity all officiating will be made only by umps, and not dependent on technology. Because that, IMHO, is a very slippery slope. Why? Because where do you stop then? It might sound ridiculous right now, but if you start down the road of introducing technology to make call in baseball, it is NOT outside the realm of possibility that a home plate umpire would become obsolete. It is VERY technically possible to put a micro, passive transducer inside of a baseball that adds less than 1/1000th of an ounce to the weight and then using lasers or other mechanisms determine the exact location of a ball as it does, or does not cross the plate. And at what height and speed. But does anyone really want to watch that? If we go that far, should be not let MLB hitters use aluminum bats? Yes, there will always be some small types of technological changes in the game of baseball which will make it better. Solid core baseballs, instead of sawdust ones. The use of batting helmets, and other protective gear. Different turned wood bats with the ends that have been "scooped" out to lighten the bat and give more control. But even all of those advances were to improve the sport. Make it better. As I have pointed out, using video replay does not.

We owe it to ourselves to keep baseball as close to the original roots of the game as possible. Because of baseball's unique nature, and the way the game is played. And to keep a tie to our sports past.

When is scoring too much?

Originally, I was not going to write about this, but upon reading the head coach response to Kansas HS Smith Center's 83-0 win, (including a 72 point 1st QUARTER assault), I have to weigh in on this.

The reason I have to comment is because I completely DIS-agree with Smith Center HC Roger Barta's response to his team mid-way through the 2nd quarter. When a HC stands up in front of his players and tells them, not only that no one else on the team is going to score, but also that even if they get close to the goal line to literally "fall down at the 5 yard line", then I HAVE to take exception to the HC's decision.

I completely understand that this is prep football, and that Barta had NO desire to embarrass the kids from Plainville HS, (the opposing team that suffered this beatdown). And I do completely agree with Barta's decision to pull all of his 1st string offensive players in the 1st quarter and all of his 1st string defensive players in the 2nd quarter. That I agree with. If those kids in Plainview were THAT outclassed by the talent-level then putting in your 2nd and 3rd teams is a way to try and give the opposing kids a chance at being competitive.

But I think it sends completely the wrong message to tell kids to DELIBERATELY "throw in the towel" and literally throw the game. Because in all actuality that is what Barta told his team. "Give up." In Kansas there were already rules pertaining to blowout wins to try and protect the ego's and psyches of young players. One such rule is that once the game reaches a 40 point margin the clock never stops, even on time outs or change of possessions. And, BTW, a sidebar note, it was NOT as if Smtih Center was throwing the ball all over the field. The Smith Center Redmen only attempted 3, yes, 3, total passes all night, and only completed two of them. All in the first quarter and only went for a TD. Every other play they called all night long was a running play.

As a former youth athlete myself, having an opposing team that was beating the hell out of me actually start LETTING me try to win, was even MORE embarrassing than them just continuing to stomp me. At least I knew that the opposing team respected me and my teammates, we just sucked. But when you suck AND your opposing team deliberately takes a dive on you that just made me mad, and was really embarrassing the next day.

It is not up to teams to stop themselves. It is up to the opponents they play to stop them, or continue to be stopped themselves. Whichever the case may be. (Afterall, Plainview did not score the entire night.) By having the team that was that far ahead give up, then why should I, (as an opposing player), continue to play hard? What's the point then?

Sometimes, in sports, you get your head handed to you. Just like in life. And it is how you deal with those adversities which determine part of your character. I think in deciding to "lay down" Barta completely disrespected the kids who played for Plainview, and was more concerned with how HE would look by continuing to run his offense, and the game, than what it meant for the kids of Plainview to try and fight their way back and make the game respectable.