Columnist Ron Kantowski: Adults become focus of a kids’ game

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2003 | 9:40 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

When I was in high school, the coaches used to remind the football players that it was not a matter of winning and losing, but how they played the game. That little pearl of wisdom usually was preceded by another 49-0 crushing defeat to our bitter rival, Disco Tech. But in that I'm more old school than William & Mary, I believed it. And still do.

However, the axiom no longer applies in Southern Nevada, at least in the high school football playoffs. It's no longer a matter of winning and losing or how you play the game, but if you play the game.

For that reason, I wouldn't have been surprised if elephants had run onto the field at Centennial High School Monday night or somebody got shot out of a cannon.

Owing to two football teams who decided to shake hands with left hooks, coaches and administrators who failed to control and/or discipline the wanna-be pugilists, a sanctioning body that has been put in the position of ruling with a heavier right hand than George Foreman, parents who can't leave bad enough alone, a judge who wants to be a sports commissioner, an attorney who fancies reading his name in the newspaper and a local media that has turned this story into front page news, the Southern Nevada high school football playoffs have been transformed into a circus.

This just in: Barnum & Bailey 7, Human Drama of Athletic Competition 0.

Whether you believe the Cheyenne football team should have been allowed to play Monday night or swallow the bitter forfeit medicine prescribed by the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association and its exhausted ruler, Jerry Hughes, I think we all can agree that the actions of the grown-ups have become a bigger story than the kids who screwed up in the first place.

Now there's a shocker.

Silly me, but I thought the issue was preventing brawls such as the one that marred the pomp and circumstance of the Cheyenne-Bishop Gorman game from happening again, not whether Jerry Hughes is the Great Santini's evil twin.

Dave Snyder, the Cheyenne coach, has been outspoken in his criticism of Hughes and anybody else who helped make the difficult decision of suspending the entire Desert Shields roster for its second-round playoff game at Centennial -- a ruling that was overturned late Friday when District Court Judge Jackie Glass granted a 15-day restraining order that forced Friday's game to Monday night.

The matter is far from being resolved, in that Cheyenne won Monday and the NIAA has indicated it may look into having the restraining order rescinded.

Yet, if Snyder and David White, his Bishop Gorman counterpart (both good and well-meaning men, I'm told), had done a better job controlling their players, lectured them on the value of sportsmanship and/or impressed upon them that fighting, under any circumstances, is abhorrent behavior that will be not be tolerated, Hughes wouldn't have had to remove his so-called iron fist from his pants pocket.

After the Cheyenne and Bishop Gorman players were done kicking butt, Hughes began taking names -- or at least numbers off the videotape. He said the film showed at least 16 players participated in the fracas, and most agree the video wasn't inclusive. Yet only one Cheyenne player in uniform that night had to sit out Monday.

I wonder what the Centennial players, and for that matter, any other team that behaved like gentleman before, during and after their games, made of that?

I also wonder what's going to happen the next time it is learned after that fact that a school had used an ineligible player and Hughes rules a forfeit, a fairly common penalty for such a transgression.

When that occurs, the whole team suffers because of one individual. Sound familiar?

In that I was raised by a steel worker whose better half had a perfect record for turning a deaf ear to any and all requests for temporary injunctions, I remain in Hughes' corner. A one-game suspension for inciting a brawl may or may not be a deterrent. The possibility of incurring the wrath of about 30 of your school chums for causing a one-game team suspension definitely would make you think twice.

Having said that, by penalizing the group rather than the guilty individuals, the NIAA tacitly and perhaps unwittingly has made winning and losing more important than participating. As one who played on some pretty dreadful high school teams, participating is about all we had to look forward to at my school.

But just when you think you've had enough, something happens to restore your faith in the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat and yes, the human drama of athletic competition. For me, that was Monday's game.

Under difficult circumstances, both teams played hard and by the rules. Cheyenne, the better team, won. Nobody from Centennial tried to start a fight afterward.

And when the referees whistled No. 64 for encroachment, his teammates accepted the 5-yard penalty, even though it wasn't their fault.