It takes a lot to soar to the lead of silliest complaints ever filed, but a man in Texas may have pulled it off.
He’s the father of a football player, whose team was on the losing end of a 91-0 score to Aledo High School in Texas. Unable to console his son afterward, the father decided to file a complaint against the opposing coach for bullying.
That complaint to me surpasses the jerk who sued a dry cleaners $64 million for losing his pants and the dork who sued Budweiser because he couldn’t attract women by drinking beer as the commercial suggested. Both lost their lawsuits, predictably.
Not only did the Texas parent lose his appeal, he turned a very serious subject into a laughing matter. There is a case in Florida where two teens are charged with bullying a 12-year-old girl who later committed suicide. But this Texas father is apparently so wrapped up in his own little world that he doesn’t watch the news or read a newspaper.
His son had his feelings hurt and someone needed to pay.
“We all witnessed the bullying,” the father wrote in a complaint filed with the Aledo school district. “Picking up my son from the fieldhouse after the game and taking him home was tough. I did not know what to say to my son on the ride home to explain the behavior of the Aledo coaches for not easing up when the game was in hand.”
The father not only made a fool of himself, he likely brought some unwanted attention to his son. Way to go, dad.
But the case did bring up the subject of a mercy rule. Arkansas has a mercy rule and Texas does not. In Arkansas, the clock will continuously run in the second half after a team gets ahead by 35 points. In Texas, opposing coaches can reach a gentleman’s agreement to run the clock and shorten the game when the score becomes highly lopsided.
That did no happen in this case, although the coach of the winning team began to pull his starters well before halftime after they had participated in 21 plays. It’s not the coach’s fault that his second- and third-string players were better than the starters for the losing team.
We saw an example of that last week, when a backup running back from Alabama took a simple toss sweep and ran 80 yards for a touchdown against Arkansas. Look closely at the video and you’ll see Alabama coach Nick Saban wince as the ballcarrier speeds along the sidelines for a score that made it 52-0 for the Tide.
The only alternative would be to ask players to run out of bounds or take a knee, and that would be even more humiliating than getting beat by nearly 100 points.
“I think the game was handled fine,” the coach of the losing high school team told a reporter for Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “(Aledo) is No. 1 for a reason. They get after it and that’s the way the game is supposed to be played. They play hard and don’t (taunt) at all.”
Although 91-0 looks bad, it is not the most points scored in Texas football history. That came in 1969 when Valley Mills totaled 103 points in a game against the Grandview Zebras.
I can’t say for sure, but I bet parents from the losing team in 1969 didn’t walk across the field and confront coaches from the winning team. I get the feeling this modern-day father will be there to hold his pampered son’s hand and blame others for future failures.
But what do you expect in an era where “timeouts” have replaced a good whack on the bottom. Still, parents who can’t resist getting involved should talk to their coaches or school administrators before taking action on their own.
That way, you can save a lot of embarrassment for yourself and ridicule for your child.
RICK FIRES IS A SPORTS WRITER FOR NWA MEDIA