Texas high school basketball coach fired after beating opponent 100-0
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Monday, January 26th 2009, 4:12 PM
For one Texas high school basketball coach even when you win, you lose.
Micah Grimes, who made national headlines when his team beat up an undermanned opponent 100-0, was fired on Sunday.
The firing of the girls varsity basketball coach comes after the Covenant School issued an official apology on its Web site following the Jan. 13 blowout of fellow Dallas-area private school, Dallas Academy.
Grimes, who was in his fourth season at the school, disagreed with the school's apology and said his team played with "honor."
"I respectfully disagree with the apology, especially the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel 'embarrassed' or 'ashamed,'" Grimes wrote in an e-mail posted on a youth basketball Web site on Sunday and published in The Dallas Morning News.
"We played the game as it was meant to be played and would not intentionally run up the score on any opponent. Although a wide-margin victory is never evidence of compassion, my girls played with honor and integrity and showed respect to Dallas Academy."
Kyle Queal, Covenant's headmaster, confirmed the firing to the Dallas Morning News, but said he could not say if the dismissal was a direct result of Grimes' disagreeing with the school.
Queal signed the original statement along with board chair Todd Doshier.
"The Covenant School, its board and administrators, regrets the incident of January 13 and the outcome of the game with the Dallas Academy Varsity Girls Basketball team. It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition."
The Christian school also sought to forfeit the game saying "a victory without honor is a great loss."
Covenant, a contender for the state championship last year, held a 59-0 lead at the half in the mid-January game. According to reports, Covenant continued to shoot 3-pointers and employ a full-court press defense into the fourth quarter.
Dallas Academy, a school that specializes in teaching students with "learning differences," such as short attention spans or dyslexia, has only eight players on its varsity squad and is winless over the last four seasons.
