Rick Reilly's last column: Houston school's scoring, slaughtering of teams is deplorable

First, let me address the fact that one of the legendary sports writers of our time will no longer be publishing a weekly column in print.

I am an uncompromising, unabashed Rick Reilly fan. He is one of the reasons I became a sportswriter, and now I will no longer be able to hold onto a copy of his column (unless you count a laptop or if I buy a Kindle/iPad).

Now onto the subject of Reilly's final column. He usually doesn't hit on subjects close to what I'm covering, but this one is very close.

Houston Yates' undefeated boys basketball team, which is competing in this year's UIL Boys Basketball State Championships, has been absolutely killing opponents. Since the lone person who can call off the dogs and stop the scoring is the head coach, the blame, Reilly argues, must fall on Yates coach Greg Wise.

So far this season, he's beaten teams by 135, 115, 99 (twice), 98, 90 and 88 points. Trying to get to 100 points in a crushing of Westbury, his players intentionally fouled to stop the clock.

This sounds familiar. There was another high-profile case of what many consider bad sportsmanship last year in Texas, when Colleyville Covenant (a team I had some experience with while working for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) beat another school 100-0 in girls basketball.

(This is another post I'll write later, but I wonder why Texas schools always seem to wind up on ESPN for running up the score?)

That coach was fired.

There was plenty of debate over whether or not that was warranted. There will surely be debate over whether Wise should be fired for his actions this year.

Personally, I've never been on either side of a win quite that bad. I will say this, though. I have been on both ends of a run-rule baseball game. By the time you're done with the losing end, it's pretty demoralizing.

I'll add that I never saw a team go up by that much that didn't work on hitting opposite field or, in the worst cases, bunting before the run-rule was reached.

So, while I don't hold the apparent hate that Reilly described in his column:

The things I would like to do to Coach Wise would curl an executioner's toes. For starters, I'd like to see him dipped in seal butter and dropped into a polar bear's cage.

I do think that there are ways to avoid this humiliation. I do see the other side of the argument, though, and am not sure what the equivalent to bunting is in basketball. I've heard of passing 10 times before shooting and such. Seems like an OK thing to me.

The other thing that is brought up in these situations: Why would a team who knows it has no chance against a team like Yates schedule them?

I know that in the high school sports I've covered, like volleyball, that is done to show just where your weakest points are so you can improve before district play.

Perhaps that's what the coaches at schools like Houston Lee were trying to do. But what Yates did to them was probably not the kind of constructive beating they were looking for.

What do you think? Seriously, I'm curious. I have a unique view because of my job, but I can never have some of your views as pure sports fans, as parents or as coaches in any capacity.