Coaches say 92-4 game should have been handled better
Derby High School Athletic Director Teg Cosgriff was watching from the gym his boys basketball team lose 119-28 — a 91-point margin — Dec. 21 to Naugatuck. As the lead grew out of hand and the baskets continued to be scored, he was in touch with Naugatuck High School Athletic Director Brian Mariano via text message.
At the end of the third quarter, with Naugatuck having scored over 100 points, he sent an update to Mariano. What he got back was “the fastest text reply I’ve ever gotten with an apology right away.”
“Brian did all the right things. He talked to his coaches that night and dealt with it. We got an apology and follow-up apology the next morning to myself and our administration.”
So Cosgriff could relate when he saw the final score to the Sacred Heart Academy vs. Lyman Hall girls basketball game this week in which Sacred Heart won by an 88-point margin: 92-4. The score turned heads across the state, prompting the debate over whether it was bad sportsmanship on Sacred Heart’s part or whether the Hamden-based team was simply playing competitive for a full game.
“These are educational-based athletics. There is a way to control it. There is a responsibility on each side regardless of ability,” said Cosgriff, whose girls basketball team also had a 60-6 loss to Holy Cross earlier this season.
“You have to be aware of when it is appropriate to pull off a press, when to drop into a zone, to run on somebody (in baseball). They are kids. Coaches can put in their best effort to (try and manage the game), but with young kids in
there sometimes it is hard.”
Sacred Heart Academy issued an apology Tuesday, following the Monday night game. The school also suspended coach Jason Kirck for one game, according to an email sent to athletic directors in the Southern Connecticut Conference — a conference which both Sacred Heart and Lyman Hall are members. He is expected to return for Sacred Heart’s next game against Amity.
“Sacred Heart Academy values the lessons taught and cultivated through athletic participation including ethical and responsible behavior, leadership and strength of character and respect for one’s opponents,” Sacred Heart Academy President Sr. Sheila O’Neill said in a statement released by the school, adding that the result of the game “does not align with our values or philosophies.”
Kirck has not been available for comment and athletic director Raymond Degnan said Tuesday he would not comment further.
Lyman Hall coach Tom Lipka said Sacred Heart pressed much of the first half and then played “tight man-to-man half court trying to get steals” against his Wallingford school.
“They showed no mercy throughout,” he said.
‘Out Of hand’
Connecticut is no stranger to some mix of competitive games and complete imbalance. That includes schools with large student bodies playing against much smaller ones, private schools vs. public and sometimes schools with different economic differences and resources playing one another.
Regarding the 88-point margin, Immaculate High girls basketball coach Thomas Sparks said sometimes the talent difference “is uncontrollable.”
“If the teams are very unmatched, the score is going to be lopsided,” said Sparks, the coach of the Danbury-based school. “But at the same time as a coach and a leader, we have to learn how to monitor those situations, so it doesn’t get out of hand.”
“Our last game we played against Abbott Tech, which has been very successful winning 32 of its last 35 or 36 that it has played,” Sparks said. “When we played them we won by 40, and at halftime we were up 40. I controlled the game so it didn’t get any worse than that.
“I am very straightforward with my girls, and in that situation it was ‘hey girls, we are up 40, we are happy and we needed this win,’” Sparks said. “‘At the same time, we are not out here to embarrass anyone.’ I didn’t tell them to stop playing hard, but I said to have a heart. That is the simplicity of it.
“At the same time, we don’t want our players to waste a day,” Sparks said. “But there are certain match-ups and substitutions you can make. There are always things you can work on, like telling the team to pinpoint a specific execution or plays. There are ways to slow the game down.”
“I definitely think it (Sacred Heart game) could have been controlled a little bit better,” Sparks said. “That was excessive, especially with it being 80-0 at the end of the third quarter. Some of it is out of his hands, some of it. He has a good program and good players, and some schools can’t even field teams with 10 players that care about playing. It is a no-brainer what kind of game that is going to be, but it didn’t have to get that out of hand.”
Danny Melzer, the New Canaan boys basketball coach, said he considers Sacred Heart’s Kirck “a good guy who would never do anything to intentionally embarrass an opponent.”
“I’m sure he feels badly about the situation and as someone who’s been on both ends of a bad blowout, I know how tough those situations can be,” Melzer said. “It’s hard to tell kids who don’t get to play a whole lot, that when it’s their shot to play, ‘by the way, we’re not trying to score and we’re going to be careful about how we play defense.’ That’s a very tough spot to be in. Unfortunately sometimes that happens and you see it across all different sports.”
Sacred Heart has played three games this season, defeating Stamford 83-48, Shelton 80-37 and Lyman Hall 92-4. While the Lyman Hall game is not available for watching on the National Federation of State High School Associations website, the site allows playback of the game against Shelton. Sacred Heart can be seen playing tight defense throughout, even as the team takes a significant lead. In the last 30 seconds of the game, Sacred Heart continues that pattern, forcing turnovers and attempting to score even as the clock is running out at the end of the game, rather than letting time expire.
Ken Smith, the Windsor boys basketball coach since the late 1980s, said he has been accused of running up the score, to the point where he was once challenged to a fight by the opposing coach. When asked directly if he has ever run up the score on an opponent, Smith said no.
“I’m not trying to demoralize kids. We don’t want to embarrass kids. But society does make things like this happen,” Smith said. “All these kids want to make all-state, all-conference, want a college scholarship. We want our players to go on and for (college) coaches to come look at our kids.”
Even Smith, whose team is averaging a 50.5 margin of victory through its first four games, was caught off guard by the Sacred Heart Academy score.
“For girls, that is really demoralizing,” Smith said. “There are a lot of things that come into it. You blame the guy who had the 92, but the guy from Lyman Hall, you have to prepare kids, teach them. Their (SHA’s) AD should have said something. Somebody had to make a better decision than that. … There is a way to do things.”
Current North Haven girls basketball coach Tom Blake has had several stops along a 40-plusyear coaching campaign, including collegiately for the men’s programs at Albertus Magnus College
and Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, as well as Cheshire Academy.
He remembers one game while coaching the Cheshire Academy boys when his team came out in a full-court press, took a 19-0 lead, and he pulled it off the rest of the way.
“I’ve been in it long enough to know that after 5 minutes in the game, I know a competitively imbalanced game,” Blake said. “And I also know at that level what I need to do just enough to win the game and not try to embarrass anybody. Everybody in uniform gets into the game. If we get a steal, we walk the ball up.”
His thoughts on the Sacred Heart Academy-Lyman hall game? “I think it was disgraceful. My heart goes out to the Lyman Hall program. Coaching high school girls basketball, I know what we do every day in practice and I know what Tom (Lipka) has done every day in practice. Those kids are working hard, giving 100 percent every day, as all our kids do. To go out and have that happen is totally unnecessary.”
‘Talk things through’
As the state’s governing body for interscholastic sports, the CIAC takes it upon itself to facilitate discussions between member schools in a dispute. And CIAC associate director Gregg Simon says sportsmanship disputes like this aren’t uncommon.
So, the morning after Sacred Heart Academy’s girls basketball team defeated Lyman Hall 92-4, Simon said the CIAC leadership reached out to both schools, their league’s commissioner and the referees involved. They listened to all sides and figured out the best way to proceed.
“We always try to get the schools together to talk things through and see what went wrong,” Simon said.
Simon estimates 90 percent of issues get resolved just by encouraging a dialogue. If not, a meeting at CIAC headquarters might be required. Afterward, the CIAC follows up to make sure both schools reached a solution.
Lyman Hall and Sacred Heart Academy both agreed to have a talk and Simon said he thinks this one ended well.
“Both schools have great leadership and I know they had a constructive conversation,” he said.
No formal complaints were made by Lyman Hall, Simon said. Those are typically reserved for rule disputes.
Simon runs the Class Act Schools program, the CIAC’s initiative on promoting sportsmanship among its membership — from the administrators all the way through to the coaches, players, and fans.
Approximately 70 percent of the CIAC’s 186 schools participate in the Class Act program and Simon says his hope is for 100 percent. Neither Lyman Hall nor Sacred Heart Academy are listed as participants on the CIAC website.
The program ultimately empowers schools and their students to discuss ways to ensure good sportsmanship is part of the culture at sporting events.
Each school has its own counsel and representatives are sent to state committees, from which sportsmanship policies, promotional events and PSAs are produced for Class Act schools.
Despite it all, sportsmanship is in the eye of the beholder.
“I don’t think there’s any formula that says: As a coach you should never score more than this much or that much,” Simon said. “It’s just the way it looks as it’s unfolding and the question if you’re doing everything you can to suppress the score.”
Even then, Simon said, it’s never definitive. “If you’re an AD, I can guarantee you’ve gotten calls from other schools about one of your coaches. It happens.
“That’s when it become a great teaching point to work with your coaches to get them to understand …that showing class and being a good sport has to supersede winning by big numbers.”