Our second grade flag football team (UP Mustangs) had a very disturbing encounter with the coach of the second grade flag football team from Bradfield (The Scots) last weekend. We are all watching a very nice game between the two very good competitive teams. Then suddenly after our little guys go up by a couple touchdowns in the middle of the second half this Scots coach begins to panic and while our coaches are trying to substitute our boys into the game to ensure everyone equitable playing time he snaps the ball before they are ready to gain cheap yardage…our coach mentions loudly “please give us a chance to get set we do it for you”….  Unbelievably this Bradfield Scots coach yells back that he had checked with the ref and the ref said it was within the rules …and keeps doing it over and over again to gain cheap yards and even a touchdown when we did not have enough players on the field after a possession change. ……our coach speaks with him in the middle of the field and says he understands that this is allowed by the rules but it certainly did not show much integrity especially since our team extended them the courtesy of waiting until they were set not only in that game but on the previous game with them just a week earlier (when they were winning) …Then after we all thought there was finally an understanding they unbelievably do it again ….. …Even the referee approached our coach after the game and said the Scots coaches’ actions while technically within the rules, were “ridiculous” and “sent the wrong message”

As you might imagine, the parents on our team could not stop talking about the unbelievable behavior on this coaches’ part.  And to be fair our coaches are extremely competitive too but through it all have shown our boys they can win without resorting to these methods. The consensus was we would not have all been so shocked had this occurred in some outlying suburb but certainly did not expect to see it in Park Cities. One even said that if Coach Allen saw this he would insist they change the name of their team on the spot!....as this definitely is not the type of values HP wants coming to its program.

My question is .… are the parents of these Bradfield second graders Ok with this “lesson” of  basically play fair until you start losing then all sportsmanship suddenly doesn’t apply and doing anything cheap you can to gain an advantage is OK?

In My opinion, if they allow this coach to keep teaching these lessons to second graders then they can look forward to far bigger troubles down the road than a yearbook scandal.