Team walks off court and goes home

[Mark Padgett]

Boys JV rec game tonight. Home scores first 18 points of the game and leads 24-3 at the end of Q1. Halftime score is 36-5. Partner has given visiting coach a T for trying to take out his frustration on us. Third quarter starts and home coach has his kids pull up on breakaways, make a bunch of passes before shots, etc. but still leads 48-8 after three. Home scores first six points of Q4 and has a spot throw-in at about midcourt. They inbound and A2 just dribbles to the basket and makes an uncontested layup. None of the visitors challenged him, in fact none of them near the basket even put their arms up. Visiting coach requests and is granted a timeout.

We hear him tell his players in the huddle that if they don't want to play, they don't have to play. He gathers up his stuff and he and the team just walk out. He doesn't say anything to anyone. My partner and I just stare at each other and shrug. There were about 20 visiting parents in the bleachers and they seemed stunned, also, but they pretty much followed the team out. After all, they had to drive the kids home.

I told the scorer to write down the game situation in the book, with the score and time left in the game just to document it.

About 10 years ago, I had a team do this under similar circumstances but it still shocked me tonight.

BTW - Second game was also JV rec but a much better game. Visitors won by 10. Oh yeah - home coach got a T from me. That's partly the reason I thought it was a better game.