By Franklyn Calle
The head basketball coach of a girl’s high school basketball team in Dallas, Texas, was fired after refusing to apologize in an e-mail sent to various media outlets “for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity,” as he calls it. The “wide-margin victory” that he is speaking of is a 100-0 shutout win for Covenant High School over Dallas Academy on January 13th. Coach Micah Grimes disagrees with the statement signed by school officials, Kyle Squeal (head of school) and Chairman Todd Doshier, posted on the school website calling the victory “shameful.” The statement read: “It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition.”
Grimes’ e-mail to the media said: “In response to the statement posted on The Covenant School website, I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.”
The e-mail also described the way he saw the game go down: “We started the game off with a full-court press. After 3 minutes into play, we had already reached a 25-0 lead. Like any rational thinking coach would do, I immediately stopped the full-court press, dropped into a 2-3 zone defense, and started subbing in my 3 bench players. This strategy continued for the rest of the game and allowed the Dallas Academy players to get the ball up the court for a chance to score. The second half started with a score of 59-0. Seeing that we would win by too wide of a margin, running down the clock was the only logical course of action left. Contrary to the articles, there were only a total of four 3 point baskets made; three is the first quarter, and only 1 in the 3rd quarter. I continued to sub in bench players, play zone defense, and run the clock for the rest of the game.”
According to the USA Today, Dallas Academy has about 20 girls in its high school with 8 of them on the team. The academy consists of small class sizes to assist students who have “learning difficulties,” with problems such as attention spans or dyslexia.
Although Grimes was fired on Sunday, the same day he sent e-mails out to the media, it is still unclear if he was fired because of the e-mail in which he disagree with the school administration take on it as well as refuses to apologize.
