How does the title of this post make you feel? What information on morals or ethics can you glean just from the title in this article? The article I found for my first post comes from sunny San Bernadino, California; where the setting is a high-school girls basketball game. The motive for the article is to show the lack of ethics displayed by a coach in his unprofessional and unsportsmanlike conduct. To shorthand the article, Arroyo Valley High-school beat Bloomington High-school 161-2. Despite the large margin of victory, the coach for the winning team played a full-court press the entire game. However, this account doesn't match up very well with his story. Daniels (2015) "He tried to slow the onslaught by benching his starters at halftime and telling his reserves to burn the shot clock before trying to score. A running clock isn't allowed until the fourth quarter under current high school rules." The coach is also quoted saying, "I didn't think it would be that bad". It would appear that the coach (Anderson) was trying to be "humane" in his treatment of the other team. However, his actions in letting his team win with a 159 point difference would say otherwise. The question that came to my mind is "why". Why would you blow out a team that badly just to show dominance. Obviously, in all sports or competitions there is a certain level of pride and competition to be expected. Every person wants to have "that team" that has the manpower or individual skills to destroy the opposition. However, I think all of us can conclude that there is a limit to how far it goes, and to what extend it is considered reasonable. I would venture to say that coach Anderson took it to the level that the game wasn't intended to be taken to.
Let's get back to the ethics, or lack of, in this new article. If we consider how our emotions play into our morals (and ethics) then we can come to several neat conclusions. Above I asked how it made you feel to hear about one basketball team destroying another team. Ironically, there are two separate emotions present in this said article. One emotion being joy- the joy that comes from a hard-earned victory. The other emotion that is present is that of anger or hurt. Hurt often follows anger and is forced to follow in anger's footsteps. Although I wouldn't necessarily say that anger from the coach is present in this scenario, it is something to be noted. As I was saying, the emotions of hurt and joy are on two different ends of the spectrum. Having both of these present creates a unique situation. In the textbook it describes morals in union with emotions. Rosenstand (2013) states that, "...other voices are adding that a good moral argument is compelling not just because of its logic but also because it makes sense emotionally. If we have no feeling of moral approval or outrage, then do we really care about whether something is morally right or wrong?" (pg. 19) This goes to show that having emotions is a huge part of having morals and thus ethics with which to confirm our moral standards.
In the case of the basket ball article it can and should be said that the coaches ethics were in question. However, in seeing that situation we can tune ourselves for that kind of scenario. How would we react or act in that situation? Another quote taken from the article- Marshall (2015), "I've known him for about seven years... He's a great X's and O's coach. Ethically? Not so much," he said. "He knows what he did was wrong.". After serving his suspension the coach has a chance to change and make it up to his team and peers. Hopefully he learned a valuable lesson in ethics that each of us can take something away from.
Reference List:
Daniels, T. (2015, January 16). California High School Girls Basketball Coach Suspended After Massive Win. Bleacher Report. Retrieved from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2332169-california-high-school-girls-basketball-coach-suspended-after-massive-win?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial
Rosenstand, N. (2013). The Moral of The Story: An Introduction to Ethics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
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