Quote:
Originally posted by Hawks Coach
One other thing. As humiliating as the blowout is, it is more humiliating to have an artificial margin at which point you are officially blown out. You find yourself coaching and playing to avoid the embarrassment of that clock starting to run. So if the purpose is to relieve some of the humiliation, I think it had the opposite effect.
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Years ago, in our local rec league, we instituted a rule that we took the score off the board if the spread was 20 points or more. We thought it would promote sportsmanship. Just the opposite happened, however.
We found kids were trying to "turn the score off" on the other team and then bragging about it in school. It became an incentive.
After one year, we eliminated that rule. I think the same might happen with the running clock mercy rule.