Pathetic. Perhaps that league needs a slaughter rule.

It is all part of muddying up the difference between right and wrong. No good, no bad, just a homogenized swill of bland so that everyone is neither good nor bad. Keep everything and everyone the same. Welcome to the Dark Ages, Part 2.

Having played and coached sports for over 40 years, common sense should play a part. It is foolish to risk injury to your best players against such an inferior opponent. Pull everyone except your bottom 5 players and let them have some fun, they work hard in practice too.

It's not wrong to beat someone that badly, but why would a team schedule such a weak opponent?

The winning coach did nothing wrong.

What needs to happen is to have a mercy rule added. something akin to, "Any time a team achieves an X point lead game over winner declared." 25, 30, 50 points whatever amount they like.

I know there is no such rule here where I live and the team at the high school where I work is pathetic. It is painful to watch our football team beaten to a pulp. They really should have a rule that allows the loser to retire without the complete humiliation of scores such as this.

Even simple logic has gone to crap.

Wow... the sad thing is this suspended coach didn't come out and say "grow up, L2P"

(1) losing by that much means the loing team was in no way prepared for the game. You blame those who did their homework that those who did not failed? Bullpucky.

(2) The losing teams coach should have been the one suspended, for taking his or her team to such a rousing defeat. The winning coach - did his job. By punishing him for winning... teaches the whole team they better not produce.

If I were on the winning team and a coach had the audacity to suggest we "tone it down", throw the game, whatever, I would have sat down in the middle of the court (and encouraged my teammates to do the same)... you want us to throw the game, then we'll do it right. And if the media takes pix, c'est la vie.

You join a team to do your best and WIN, not to allow others to kick your butt becuse "it's only fair..." Unless you live in a socialist country, you are taught to EXCEL, not to MEDIOCRE...

the game should have been stopped after 2 or 3 minutes as it was very obvious that this was not going to be a game. the coach of the better team should have said we will give your team lessons.
these are kids and letting one team just score at will as happened is a disgrace.

Honorable concession...the only path.

Seriously? Have you too learned your sportsmanship at the Aroyo HS?

The "loser" coach could have forfeited at any time. He is responsible for the score.

Reminds me of the story my Uncle Boyd (best uncle in the world) told me when I started playing basketball in high school (1957). I asked if he had played and he said, 'Yeah, and I was the high scorer in one game. I made one basket and one free throw." I said, "That's only 3 points." He said, "We lost 55 to 3."

In my day, such a lopsided score was the springboard to a good talking-to. And if those lopsided losses persisted, the coach was gone.

Another classic testament of how our Casper Milquetoast society promotes the weak trying to control the strong.

Yah, like high schoolers playing middle schoolers. I have no idea how one could win or lose so badly. Something just doesn't seem right here. I play basketball and don't consider myself good but I can make a couple hoops in 40 minites even against 20 something's and I more than 50.

I don't believe they should have let the bad team win, but you must admit 161 to 2 is a little unsportsmanlike. I was taught that if you where up by more than 20 (in basketball at least) just start running plays you need to practice, and if you score whatever just be courtious
Not supporting letting loosing team win just supporting good sportsmanship :)

I don't see how the losing team could suck so bad. I hate the message here. They don't want the losing team to get better, they want the winning team to play worse.

Losers acting like losers... call the WHAAAAAmbulance.

My guess is that the disparity was not all in the coaching, but a great deal in the teams and probably their approach to the game.

Losers telling winners how to play the game.
AS non fiction.
I don't think this is the way:
the Britsh thought in defeating the Spanish Armada or stopping the French at Trafalgar,
the US Navy commanders thought after they crushed the Japanese at Midway (likely saving Australia from invasion.)