School administrators normally cheer when their teams beat the competition, but there was a little too much beating last Friday when Inglewood High School’s Sentinels football team beat their archrivals, Morningside High’s Monarchs, by 106-0—forcing Inglewood principal Debbie Tate to issue an apology.
“Our administration and coaching staff believe that athletics should be a source of pride for our community,” Tate said in a statement, CNN reports. “While Friday’s game did not reflect our best judgement as administrators, the Morningside High School and Inglewood High school football players, and their coaches have worked hard all season and deserve our respect.”
Tate added “We did not conduct ourselves with sportsmanship and integrity and the final score was unacceptable.”
Some took exception to the fact that Inglewood starting quarterback, UCLA-bound Justyn Martin, passed for 13 touchdowns, and the team went for a two-point conversion when they already had a 104-0 lead.
The Monarchs’s Dayvon Scruggs showed his sportsmanship while also identifying Inglewood coach Mil’Von James as the main culprit, told ABC 7, “He used their star quarterback, so it was to be expected. We came in the game knowing that we were going to lose, but at the same time we still fought to the very end and didn’t quit and that’s what really matters.”
First-time Morningside head coach Brian Collins was less diplomatic. “It was a classless move,” he told Los Angeles Times sportswriter Eric Sondheimer, saying Inglewood refused to allow a running clock when that option was offered to them after the first quarter.
Collins added, “I told them, ‘Go play St. John Bosco and Mater Dei.’”
"It was a classless move," Morningside football coach Brian Collins said of Inglewood scoring 106 points against his team. "I told them, 'Go play St. John Bosco and Mater Dei.'"
— eric sondheimer (@latsondheimer) October 30, 2021
Mater Dei is the $18,100-a-year Santa Ana private school currently—and usually—in first place in the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section, while rival St. John Bosco in Bellflower (tuition: $15,575) is in second.
Some Twitter coaches would now like to see a matchup between 20th-ranked Inglewood and either of those teams as well:
“Breaking news: Inglewood football 2022 nonleague schedule Week 1: Mater Dei Week 2: Servite Week 3: Bosco Week 4: Centennial Week 5: Sierra Canyon Won’t get 100 combined.”
Breaking news: Inglewood football 🏈 2022 nonleague schedule
Week 1: Mater Dei
Week 2: Servite
Week 3: Bosco
Week 4: Centennial
Week 5: Sierra CanyonWon’t get 100 combined@Tarek_Fattal @latsondheimer @RonMFlores @CalHiSports
— Jack Pollon (@pollonpreps) October 30, 2021
Inglewood’s Coach James declined to comment to CNN, but Principal Tate said in a letter posted to social media that he, too, offers his apologies to Morningside and the school community at large.
Of course, plenty of Twitter heroes also believe this is yet another a symptom of the softening of America—kind of like getting worked into a lather on Twitter over high school sports.
