Little girls treated fairly, or unfairly?

[Mark Padgett]

My local fishwrap, The Oregonian, carried the story this morning about a fourth grade girls basketball team called the "Big Dogs". They are from Milwaukie, Oregon, which is a suburb of Portland. There are 10 girls on the team and a few of them played last year, but most are in their first year of organized ball.

Despite that, and being the shortest team in the league, they went 10-0, scoring a total of 424 points to their opponents 154. In one game, they led 44-0 at the half, and their coach said they could have run up the score, but didn't.

The league told the team they could not participate in the season ending tournament because the other teams said they would not play if this team did. During the season, teams sometimes refused to play them a second time. The league told them they could play only in the next division up.

The Big Dogs played at a level that did not allow full-court defense or zones, but the next level up did.

After a long discussion and much anger (their coach and parents made the point that the girls were being punished for winning), they decided to give it a shot, even though the girls they were going to play were 11 and 12, not 9 and 10, averaged about a foot taller and 40 pounds heavier per girl (according to the story - although that seems like a stretch to me).

They won the tournament against the bigger girls, winning the championship game 20-13.

Although their coaches insist they were good sports, one team got beat so bad during the regular season by the Big Dogs, they dropped out of the league.

Being on the Board of a local association similar to this one makes me think that if this was a competitive league, the other teams really don't have much of a beef, despite the age level. However, if this is strictly a rec league (and I don't know which), then the league needs to reevaluate at least two things: how teams are formed and "stacked", and how to train coaches in teaching their teams to practice good sportsmanship.