Boiling Springs Crest High School’s (NC) football team was supposed to play in the state semi-finals tonight, but instead the school turned itself in for inadvertently using an ineligible player earlier in the season and consequently forfeiting tonight’s game.  I can only imagine how disappointed those kids are tonight, and I doubt that disappointment will ever go away.  I know I’d have given half my teeth to be able to play for a shot at the state finals when I was playing high school sports and I doubt I wouldn’t have been too graceful in handling that kind of disappointment.

The story I read doesn’t say exactly what happened so I’m not sure who at the school blew the whistle, but whether or not it was the coach he now has an opportunity to teach his players a life lesson that will stick with them forever.  He’ll get the chance to show them how to deal with disappointment, to put things in perspective for them and to help them understand that what they did was the right thing. 

This is what activities like high school football are supposed to be all about; learning to give your best effort at all times, to support your teammates and above all to play with honor.  Part of playing with honor is playing within the rules, and even if you break the rules by accident you’ve basically lost honor.  The way to regain your honor is to deal with the situation openly and honestly, and to take your medicine no matter how bitter.

At this point we don’t know if the ineligible player was a star, a benchwarmer or someone in between, but as they say in the story "rules are rules." Part of me thinks that if it’s an innocent mistake and it was only one player and it wasn’t for the entire season (i.e. a minor infraction) then you should come up with some punishment that doesn’t crush dozens of boys’ dreams.  Unfortunately experience tells me that if you come up with any kind of nuanced system there will be a bunch of dumb-ass, win-at-all-costs coaches that drive a truck through every loophole.  The fact that these kids, who haven’t done anything wrong, will have to suffer because of what a bunch of ne’er-do-wells have done in the past is just one more life lesson they’ll get out of this.

In the long run the folks at Boiling Springs Crest are going to gain more out of this forfeit than they ever would have from winning a state championship.  At least I hope so.  I’m almost positive they’ve earned the respect of their opponents-to-have-been, Grimsley High School.  The Grimsley folks are probably sitting at home splitting time between wondering whether or not they would have done the same thing and looking forward to the state championship next week.  That’s what I’d be doing.

Hard to beat a comeback like this one courtesy of aBum.

It says something about sports, and tennis in particular, that when a guy does the right thing it is a big deal.  Case in point, Andy Roddick was playing in the Rome Masters and was up three break points (also match points) in the second set of his match.  His opponent’s second serve was called out which would have been game-set-match Roddick, but he looked at the mark in the clay and said it was good.  He overruled the line judge himself.

Now this wouldn’t have made the newswires (I read it here) except that Roddick’s opponent came back to win.  The pessimist in me says that Roddick never would have done the same thing if it was match point in a fifth set tie-breaker, but sadly most tennis players wouldn’t have done it even in the relatively safe position Roddick was in.

The optimist in me says that Roddick knows as well as any player in the game that no lead is completely safe and in this case he was only up one break and a couple of break points.  Definitely not an insurmountable lead, and still he did the right thing by re-playing the point. 

So my hat is off to him, and I continue to be impressed with how this very young man continues to handle himself in a situation that I’m sure would turn most of us into ego-maniacal jerks.  I know I would have been a terror in his shoes.

Chris Paul, who grew up just down the road from my house, is going pro.  No surprise, although I think he could have used another year to mature.

Physically he’s ready, but I worry about the mental/psychological part.  He didn’t do well under pressure at the end of the season (Hodgeball anyone?), and my gut tells me he may have some tough times at the next level.

On the other hand at the pro level the equivalent of the Hodgeball incident would have been a number 8 on the Sportscenter top 10 for one night and then forgotten.  So maybe getting out of the hypocritical "pure game" that is big-time NCAA basketball will be just what he needs.

Speaking of Julius Hodge, does anyone else think that his Senior Swoon has pushed quite a few underclassmen that might have stayed one more year into the draft?  I mean he literally cost himself millions by staying the extra year and having an off season.  If I’m in one of those guys’ shoes I’m off to the pros faster than you can spell…whatever big-time NCAA basketball players can spell.

M-O-N-E-Y

I’m in Chicago on business and just finished watching UNC beat the Illini for the national championship.  On the news they interviewed Governor Blagojevich of Illinois, and he informed them that he had made a friendly wager with Governor Easley of North Carolina.

The bet?  Deep dish pizza and-some-drink-I-can’t-remember against barbeque (Lexington style I’m sure; not that inferior Eastern NC stuff) and cherry wine.  Cherry wine?  That sounds like ripple.  Surely the governor was refering to Cheerwine, the world’s greatest soda.

Oh, and I must remind everyone that Wake beat NC the only time they played this year. 

Back on March 13 I posted this piece stating that the ACC wouldn’t be represented in the Final Four.  To cut myself some slack I did make this prediction before the brackets came out, and yet I was only a one-point win by UNC away from getting it right.

I also said that if I was smart I’d say that only one team would get in, not none.  I hate it when I’m right about being wrong…or whatever.