In sports, you want to play your best to your opponent’s best.  But what you said when one team has at least double, triple the number of athlete’s to their opposition?

I was looking at a box score between Metropolitan League team’s Sacramento High School and Johnson High School earlier today with the Dragons defeated the Warriors easily 60-0; but what you probably don’t know is that Sacramento has 51 players to Johnson’s 23 players on roster (not factoring any possible injuries).

How fare is this?  But isn’t it the Warriors job to stop the Dragons from scoring?  Isn’t Sacramento’s job to keep it fair and even since they out numbered Johnson by 28 players?

I’m looking at this and noticing that the Dragons scoring 40 points by half time and I couldn’t help to ask, how long were the starters in?  Why didn’t Sacramento call off the dogs after going up by four/five scores?

I was once an athlete, yeah I did get excited when we can march up and down the field on a team with ease.  It’ll be a short game and a short night.

But I’ve seen the other side.  Players upset, crying and wondering why and questioning if they should continue playing the sport; especially if it happens on a constant basis.

But I have coached as well as a sports fun.  It made me realize that what we put out there is our best.  No matter what happen, no matter the result because we expect that from the other side to put out their best and we’re suppose to stop of the other team.

As a writer and now as a spectator, I look at it as this:  How far is it when a team like Sacramento to line-up 51 compare to Johnson’s 23?   Why doesn’t the Dragons line up their best 23 players (one-way or both way athlete’s), compare to the Johnson’s 23?

That’s the problem with the California Interscholastic Federation, (or CIF).  They base each school by student body size and not how many athlete’s you can field per sports season.  So it set’s up Johnson to be on the wrong end of the spectrum compare to Sacramento.

It’s unlikely it would happen, but my best solution to this problem is this:  If you have a roster number greater than eight of the other team, then you can only dress up to eight extra players to that of the other team.

If we go with the number’s from the Sacramento/Johnson number, then the Dragon’s could only dress 31 and not 51 and it would even out the playing field and put one’s best to another’s best.

Yeah, maybe scores like that would happen.  It’s the nature of the beast, it’s part of the game.  But it would also limited the number of them occurring and maybe keep players from giving up on the season and/or quitting.

Jeremy McDonald received a B.S. in Journalism from Southern Oregon University in 2011 and currently is finishing up his B.S. in Health and Physical Education from Southern Oregon University. He is currently a Sports Correspondent/Freelancer for Gold Country Media.