Did Anyone Learn a Lesson When a Prep Player Erased Scores?

   This is my opinion and does not reflect the views of the Oakland Press

I was at Flushing Valley the other day when the regionals were held and four county teams were vying for the three spots in the State tournament finals. I arrived at the tournament about 15 minutes after the golfers teed off but I could tell after talking with the tournament director and a couple of coaches that there was a little tension in the air but I thought after speaking with one coach that it had to do with coaches coaching players during the hole which is a no-no. While I am good at sniffing out a story I really did not want to pursue this but am glad that Keith Dunlap did and his story appears in the Saturday paper. When the awards were released, I went to talk with Davison (who won the event) and had planned to speak with Oxford but they quickly left the grounds.

     What makes prep golf an honest sport is not only the honor code in golf but players from different teams keep your score and you go over it with them before turning it in to your coach or in this case to the tournament officials that total up all of the scores. As I understand it the unnamed Oxford player changed his score in three seperate places after meeting with his playing partners and changed his 87 to an 84. His playing partners alerted tournament officials who confronted the golfer and he admitted that he erased his original score and marked his scorecard one stroke better on three seperate holes. He was promptly disqualified but here is where the controversy really begins.

     In basketball, if you step on the end line and the official does not catch it and your team goes on to score a basket, it is considered no big deal because an official was there and did not call it. In golf, you are expected to hold yourself to the honor code and in this case it did not happen. Golf is the other extreme of "if you are not cheatin' you are not trying." Since NASCAR is not a MHSAA event we do not have to worry about that in this case.

The MHSAA stipulates that when a player commits an unsportsmanlike act, they are supposed to sit out the next event which in this case was the Regional Tournament. In this case, both the MHSAA and in my opinion Oxford Schools dropped the ball. The MHSAA passed the buck and said this is a matter that should have been handled at the course and it occurred in the disqualification of the golfer at the event and the scores were moved back to the original score shot. The tournament director alerted the MHSAA and the schools and tournament officials expected this to occur but it was not ruled that way by those making the decision in Lansing. But why Oxford would allow the golfer to compete at the next event when he clearly violated the rules and admitted to it is beyond me. If he would have had to sit out the event, we would not have had much of a controversy. You take your medicine and go home. Instead, he shot a 78 instead of a subsequent Oxford player that shot a higher score and his score allowed Oxford to move onto the State Finals instead of Lake Orion which finished tied with Rochester, both two strokes behind Oxford. Lake Orion won a tie breaker with the Falcons. High school golf has become extremely competitive. Of the 72 golfers that competed at Flushing Valley, 27 golfers finished with scores of 79 or better and most of the top ten had at least two golfers reach that mark and some had three.

    As a coach you have to have discipline on your team. What it says it me is that your score is more important than integrity. I do not want to ever bury a student and these are lessons that can be learned from by everyone. If I was the coach, he surely would not have played. If I am the AD of the school I would have interviewed the coach and the player and assume that must have happened in this case. Instead the player and coach proceeded to Flushing Valley like nothing ever happened. The student athlete and the Coach must walk between the ropes this week at Katke Cousins and decide if this was truly an honest mistake or if they deserve to compete instead of another school that competed honestly. An adult should have made a wiser decision so the community could celebrate this team instead of have to read this stuff in this blog and the local newspaper.

This is my opinion and does not reflect the views of the Oakland Press.

.