One of the great trick plays of High School Sports.
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Classic, just friggen classic!
Was the snap legal?
15 yards – unsportsmanlike conduct
Absolutely, totally legal — here’s one from another angle with more commentary:
Legal? Ok.
Unethical, disrespectful, unsportsmanlike, even dangerous? Oh, Yes.
Bet the coach even thinks he is clever.
Legal perhaps, but using this crap with kids is just bad sportsmanship. This isn’t a tribute to Walsh, he’d never resort to kiddie crapola like this.
#5. Deception is key to sports… running backs twitch left, go right. Receivers run routes where deception is the key to getting open, outfielders fake a catch to deceive runners on base, pitchers hide their grip, heck the whole point of offspeed pitches is deception. I don’t think one can claim deception in sports as being unethical, although one can certainly argue the extremes…
Disrespectful? Unsportsmanlike? Oh, yes. I’m with you 100% on those- especially in an amateur setting.
7—YOU are the only one using the word “deception.” What sort of distinction are you trying to make that is not implicit if not explicit in the comment?
So, are you actually trying to make the distinction between unethical manuevers and “extremely unethical” manuevers. Would that make the former legal and the latter illegal or what would the further distinction be then?
So, this fake play==extremely unethical or merely unethical?
The play was a deception- I expect that is what you objected to…
You (not me) called it unethical- but it can’t be when visual deception in plays is a key aspect of the sport.
It can be considered poor sportsmanship and disrespectful- which it is in my opinion. I think the distinction is important because many things are legal or ‘allowed’ but are distasteful- and that is what distinguishes poor character from good character.
I think the video was posted because it is AMUSING. Jeez, what’s with all the moralizing?
Plays like that are the reason that my little league coach told us to hit somebody whenever the ball is picked up after everybody has lined up. They cannot call a penalty against you if there is also the potential for something like that. Sure, the parents didn’t like it when we hit the center that was asking the ref to dry the ball, but no way they were getting a cheap touchdown on us!
If the ball leaves the GROUND…
NO whistle,
NO REF..
EVEN if some kid in the back called TIME OUT, there was no whistle…
LAY THE GUY” OUT.
Fair, YES…IT you dont know the rules, get OFF the field.
Games are based, on War. PLEASE remember that..
And NOTHING is fair in war.
This teaches a lesson…
ON THE FIELD ….
IF you dont hear the Whistle…
DONT see the flag..
DONT hear the ref….
DO IT….
This play is illegal in pro games, even I know that and I’m a brit.
It is however legal is the youth teams (which the video seems to show), though I’m pretty sure it’s also illegal in High School teams.
Why is it illegal in pro games? Because it’s the worst king of poor-sportsmanship exploitation of the rules there is.
Just because the rules technically allow something doesn’t make it right, which is why most games have a sportmanship penalty rule – to make up for the fact that no-one wants a rule book 300 pages long just to deal with clever dick players and coaches taking the letter, not the spirit, of the rules as their guide.
#6 Walsh ran a LOT of trick plays in his first two years with the Niners..LOTS. Later he didn’t have to. The other team should have spotted this and walked over with the kid. You boneheads crack me up with the “unethical” aspect. The original forward pass was probably called unethical too.
It’s FOOTBALL! Even in college the now illegal “fumblerooski” play was commonly run and it’s as weird as this — almost.
btw ECA – most Games aren’t based on war. They are however combative, competitive games. There is a difference.
Games that are actually based on war tend towards strategy actually, not things like American Football, or Soccer. Chess, Go, and many other board games are based around this sort of concept.
14,
SPORTSman like???
16, as I SAID, and you made the point…
14, And was it SPORTMAN LIKE in the Colonial wars that the red coats would stand in lines, while the US cits, hid behind trees, to Shoot back??
Even Napoleon had his strategy that worked, until OTHERS learned it, and Played it against him at waterloo…
Or the advancement of the Mongols, useing the Pincer movement, and the Fake…as well as Better archers…
I can see it now in Iraq…
TWEETT
unsportsmanlike like conduct….15 yards…
USA at the Al Qada 10 yard line..
Seems to me “Sports” is about playing the game.
Playing the “rules” is something else?????
However, unlike some of my other heart felt pontifications, on this one, reasonable people may differ.
Unethical, disrespectful, unsportsmanlike, even dangerous? Oh, Yes.
Sorry Bobbo, if it’s a legal play and the other team is fooled, tough. No one broke any rules, looks to me like the other team was “outcoached.”
Hey, it’s a game. There’s no lesson here about fair play, morality, disrespect, sportsmanship — unless you consider getting caught being fooled a lesson. I’ll bet the team that stood around got a real reaming from the coach later, as well they should.
19—Yes thats what makes it “legal.”
But there is “the other side” of the issue. A person stands up asking (the coach) for help and you are supposed to “hit” him? Sounds like there could be a serious mistake of fact here that could lead to injuries?? That and a whole generation of going by the letter of the law and not the intent of the law. So, either you are sensitive to that dual nature of such a dispute or you are not.
Analogies to war?—gee, thats a tough one.
#20, Bobbo, A person stands up asking (the coach) for help and you are supposed to “hit” him?
If you know the rules, yes. Hit him. Hard. Make him fumble. Take the ball away and head for the end zone. That’s the game, man, that’s the game. Tough? Without question. Entertaining? Ask the advertisers, it’s made more money for Budweiser than most sports, and people are injured in baseball, soccer, basketball, NASCAR, etc. daily.
I’m not saying the video is any worthwhile tribute to Bill Walsh, but he would have probably been incensed with the ignorance of any team he coached that was so ignorant of the rules.
As for advertising, now this is just scary:
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2006/1127/058.html
Somewhat like the Florida election. The Democrats and Republicans take the field. Both know the rules: the electoral vote is the final score. Republicans realize the opposition is going to squeeze out a victory because there aren’t enough gullible folks left for Bush to fool. Captain Karl calls for a Supreme Court press.
Naive Democrats are dumbfounded when the tally is announced; but that’s because they didn’t study films of the contest in Illinois when Old Joe used the Daly home field advantage to upset Nixon.
Is it cheating? Winning is knowing what you can get away with on any given night in America and being able to count on the opposition to be unaware you are willing to do whatever it takes.
Ohio merely proved the public is slow to catch on — unlike the teams in the videos who will likely never fall for that stunt again.
Legal?
Once anyone says “its legal” after that, we are all agreeing on whether or not someone can “learn” from it, or that it is effective, thats the game, and all the rest.
Hence “unethical” and “unsportsmanlike”–ie, if your only goal is to win, you will do that which is legal but unethical and unsportsmanlike as well.
So==say something I disagree with??????? And when the 8 year old gets a fractured neck while asking for help, then we can say “Them’s the rules candyass!!!”
Now, Bob H–you are running a totally different scrimage==breaking the law and making the bet you won’t get caught. Totally different and you wrote your piece with fully knowledge of that. Nice exercise though, the power of the written word and the allusions it build to an illusion of equivalence? You write like a tired spinmaster.
If you were a more aware coach you would have coached your players to at least slid down the line to make sure that he couldn’t just run with out any being able to hit him immediately. Once the play starts you can’t stop playing until it’s whistled dead and all the other team is doing is bitching for getting caught with their mental pants down….ever been checkmated in three moves?…no different.
I’ll grant you the “tired”.
Spinmaster? I confess to some years as a copywriter at a couple of small radio stations many years ago.
My observation was tiny too: I’ll bet not a single kid on the opposition will forget that play while voters fall for deception every time.
#21, Bubba, I have to disagree.
If you know the rules, yes. Hit him. Hard. Make him fumble. Take the ball away and head for the end zone. That’s the game, man,
No that isn’t the game. In our striper league that play isn’t allowed, it would have been a 15 yard penalty. The situation must be made clear when and when not the QB may be hit. This QB would have been penalized for taking advantage of his protected position just the same as the opposing player that hits him needlessly.
With young players the GOAL is to have fun and win playing football. It isn’t to see if you can “fool” the other team. If they had of blitzed the QB and injured him, there would have been hell to pay. And that hell would NOT have been chalked up to “that’s the game, man”.
Ok,
I have to ask this, esp of those older folks out there…
When we were younger and being Taught to be nice and Pure…
To be Fair, and considerate…
WHY in the Hell didnt someone teach the other kids, that NOW are trying to control this Gov??
Or the corporate Jungle and back stabbing Idiots, and CEO’s…
I would rather teach the kids to KNOW, and understand the TRICKS, in a few games…then to make then Passive Sheep later in life.
These are Life lessons. Teach them how to fight back, KNOw the rules, and either take advantage of them, or KNOW how to Right the wrongs.
15.
I think Dvorak hit the nail on the head.
Imagine what people thought about the first guy to throw a curveball.
“MY GOD, He tricked the batter! he didn’t throw the ball straight into his bat! how unsportsman like!”
This is absolutely hilarious. And brilliant.
The sneaky coach helped the opposing team learn something, in a way that they will never forget; he did them a favor.
#28, Duaragon,
The curve ball originated at the same time as rules governing baseball were originating. The aim of the pitched ball was never to throw the ball into the bat, it has always been to hit the thrown pitch.
#29, Noam
The sneaky coach helped the opposing team learn something, in a way that they will never forget; he did them a favor.
So if I lifted your wallet, I could claim I was also teaching you a lesson. Would you consider that a favor?