A couple of Nashville-area girls’ basketball teams weren’t enamored at the prospect of being in the same bracket as the defending state champion, so they both fell all over themselves to lose an early-round playoff game. Tennessee high school athletics officials weren’t amused, and as a result, both teams are now out of the playoffs.
On Saturday night, the Smyrna Lady Bulldogs traveled to Murfreesboro to face the Riverdale Lady Warriors in a 3A consolation game.? The game quickly degenerated into a farce. Early in the game, both teams yanked their starters in favor of players who had scarcely played a minute of varsity ball. Smyrna put its starters back in later in the game at the behest of an administrator. Smyrna went on to win, 55-29. Speculation quickly abounded that both teams were trying to lose the game because the loser would have had a significantly easier time of it in the playoffs. Due to the way the basketball playoff bracket was set up, the winner of Saturday’s game would have likely played Blackman High of Murfreesboro, the defending state champions, in the semifinals. The loser wouldn’t have had to face Blackman until the regional finals at the earliest. Whatever one may think about that setup, there was no excuse whatsoever for what happened on Saturday.
When Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association officials got the referee’s report, they were appalled at what they saw. His assessment was blunt–both Riverdale and Smyrna “played to lose the game.” The referee noted that the Lady Warriors deliberately missed at least 12 free throws, and that the Lady Bulldogs dragged their feet getting the ball across the halfcourt line on several occasions. Both teams also intentionally tried to draw three-second violations for standing in the lane too long. When a Smyrna player tried to take a free throw at the wrong basket, the referee had seen enough. He called Smyrna coach Shawn Middleton and Riverdale coach Cory Barrett to the scorer’s table and told them in no uncertain terms that “we are not going to make a travesty or mockery of the game.”
TSSAA officials responded by throwing both Smyrna and Riverdale out of the playoffs. Both schools were also fined $1,500 and placed on probation until the end of the 2016-17 school year. In his letter announcing the decision, TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress wrote Smyrna principal Rick Powell and Riverdale principal Tom Nolan that both schools’ actions “defeated the purpose of educational-based athletics.” Read the letter to Nolan here; an identical letter was sent to Powell. When Powell and Nolan found out about the decision, they offered to suspend their coaches for the rest of the playoffs if they were allowed to continue. However, Childress was unmoved, saying that the players “bought into” the shameful display.
Earlier today, Rutherford County Director of Schools Don Odom announced that he had banned Middleton and Barrett from coaching anywhere in the school system until 2017 at the earliest. Smyrna didn’t even wait for that decision; it had already announced Middleton would not return as coach. No decision has been made about Barrett’s future beyond 2017 as of yet, though it’s almost inconceivable he’ll be back–especially considering that state officials harshly criticized him for not really caring what was happening. Barrett denied telling his players to try to lose the game; he only claimed to have told them how the seeding would work. Middleton admitted reacting to Barrett’s decision to pull his starters “in the heat of the game,” and regrets doing so. It wasn’t enough to save his job, though. There is no way that either man should ever be allowed to coach again.
I hope that Odom, Powell and Nolan are beginning the process of firing Middleton and Barrett as teachers as well. At the very least, they sat there and allowed this farce to go on. In my book, that’s no different from a teacher knowingly allowing students to cheat on a test or knowingly allowing bullying to take place in his or her classroom. If allowing players to blatantly tank a game isn’t grounds for revoking tenure, I don’t know what is. The players need a serious reality check as well. If any of those who took part in this are ever allowed to play high school sports in Tennessee again, state officials will effectively be saying that you can get away with laying down on the job when you’re doing something you don’t want to do.
