Don't Run up the Score? Then Stop Me.

Don't Run up the Score? Then Stop Me.

Host Alex "Moose" Strizak

It's Tuesday, June 11th...

And it's halftime and the US Women's National Soccer Team goes into the break up 3-0 on Thailand. Watching the first half, it's clear the US team is far superior and it looks as if Thailand will have a problem skating out of another half only allowing 3 goals.

5 minutes into the second half (the 50 minute mark) "it" begins. And by "it"... I mean annihilation.

The US Soccer team starts scoring like how I eat chicken nuggets. And I thought this was fantastic to watch! The beauty in their passing, the skills that they had were at full throttle against a team that didn't even stand a chance against a sluggish first half US team.

And then Alex Morgan scores again... Mallory Pugh... Morgan.. Finally, it's extra time and Thailand looks to count their blessings and finally just go home for the night...

Goal. Off the right foot of Carli Loyd.

United States 13 - Thailand 0

Annihilation might've been an understatement. 9 scores of anything in any sport will catch your attention (football, a team may get grooving... basketball we can save that argument for a different day).

But then, instead of feeling pride in our country's soccer team for setting a literal world record, we bring up pity. Tweets are raining in that the US Soccer team "ran up the score and celebrated too much being up by that much".

Um. What?

Forget about all the discussion about "needing goals for seeding" because there's more to this than just that point... Since when in professional sports have you ever heard of a mercy rule?

If you don't like someone running up the score on you, then you better learn how to stop them from scoring.

It's a professional sport for a reason. They are paid (and as we've seen all over social media, the women's soccer team definitely isn't paid enough) to play the best they can at all times they are on the clock. In business, your manager wouldn't ask you to slack off on your sales calls because the competing company just doesn't have enough talent in the sales department to keep up with you.

In professional sports, this is the mindset. Win and play the best you can so that you can make a living and move on to a better contract each time your old one runs out.

Now, I'm not saying that winning is everything in every level of sports... Take the Little League incident in Lakewood, Colorado for example.

For those who don't know, there was a baseball game for kids about 7-YEARS OLD with a 13 YEAR OLD UMPIRE. This is one of the most beautiful and purest moments in a baseball career where there are young kids making a little money in the local community by umpiring for even younger kids who just want to play ball.

Tainted.

These parents didn't seem to agree with a call by the 13-YEAR OLD UMPIRE.... THIRTEEN!...

So like what any reasonable adult would do, they clapped for their kids and said "It's ok, let's just keep having fun and play ball!"

But they actually didn't even come close to that... Instead, they absolutely embarrassed themselves by taking the field and proceeding to fight the parents of the other team... Shame...

If winning a 7-year old Little League game means that much to you, then you are that big of loser to need that.

I feel like this does get lost in the college experience of sports, as well. Since the coaches are being paid to win, the NCAA puts student-athletes on one year contracts and transfer restrictions so it feels like they have skin in the game, too. 

I understand learning lessons of what is to come with expectations at work, but you can't look me in the eye and tell me that these college coaches may go over the top like Mike Rice (pictured above) pegging student-athletes with basketballs at practice.

But until a player reaches the professional level and it is their paid job to perform for victories, this nonsense needs to stop and the kids need to be allowed to play so that they can enjoy themselves. Once they are paid to try to win for their program, they have my blessing to score as many runs, tries, scores, points, goals as they can because THAT'S THEIR JOB like these parents at the Little League game failed to do...

Let the kids play. Let the professionals do their jobs.