A High School Football is Out of a Job After the Most Diabolical Attempt to Run Up the Score You'll Ever See

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While I spent my freshman year playing high school football I can never claim to have coached it. But I imagine it's a slightly older version of the same insane, twisted, dystopian world I inhabited for almost a dozen years and wrote about last month:

tl;dr: I saw parents and coaches have to be separated by cops. A coach get fired and later get criminally charged for deleting all the data of every kid in the program. Another take bets on college football in the middle of our games. A kid who was such a coach's pet he would show up for practice for five minutes a week, arrive late to games, and still play every down. And one time showed up at halftime in the wrong uniform, so they took the jersey off another kid and put it on him so he could play. And more. 

The point being, that youth football is not a world for rational, emotionally stable humans. It's a Lovecraftian horror, where the Law of the Land doesn't apply, but the Law of the Jungle does. And high school ball is exponentially worse. 

As proven by this latest episode:

Source - A 63-0 victory wasn't enough to save one Oregon high school football coach's job — in fact, it might be the reason he lost it.

Marist Catholic High School in Eugene, Oregon, fired head football coach Zach Loboy following the Spartans' dominant win over Cottage Grove on Friday, Oct. 9 — a game that was called at halftime after Marist built an insurmountable lead.

The news was first reported by Mid Major Media and later confirmed by the Eugene Register Guard, part of the USA TODAY Network.

According to NFHS Network footage, Marist opted to go with an onside kick up 56-0 with 1:47 to play in the first half. Cottage Grove, according to the footage, had what amounted to be 16 total players suited up for the contest. After failing to recover the onside kick, Marist picked off a pass and scored again with under 30 seconds to play to go up 63-0. 

"What happened there is really not reflective of the school's mission and how we want to treat our opponents," [AD Rick] Gardner told the Register-Guard. …

The second half of the game was not played. A meeting between Gardner, Cottage Grove athletic director Garrett Bridgens and Lane County Football Association commissioner Mike Whitty resulted in the game being called.

To review: So Marist Catholic's "mission" does not reflect onside kicking when you're up 57 points on a school that can only suit up 16 kids. But Zach Loboy's mission very much is.

Coaching is ultimately about teaching kids lessons, and inspiring them to achieve great things on the field and in life. And Coach Loboy's lesson is that, whenever you have the opportunity, crush the will of any weaker, inferior opponent. It's about harvesting souls. And making the other team regret not only that they tried out for Cottage Grove football, but that they were ever born. 

And that message was most definitely received by his players. I mean, look at the Marist sideline when they learned they were getting the ball back. Jumping up and down. Celebrating because their bloodlust had not be satisfied by a mere 57-0 lead. Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, they were hungry for more. 

Here's the thing, though. I guarantee you that if they put it up to a vote among the team and their parents, they'd choose Coach Loboy over AD Gardner. In fact, it would be unanimous. No one spends all those Friday nights sitting on the hard bleachers, shivering in the cold and rain, paying for all those football camps and so on, wanting their boys to learn lessons about sportsmanship and fair play. They do it because they want their sons to be winners. And to hell with the smaller schools who can't get anyone to sign up. 

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If it were up to them, they'd have wanted to Loboy to keep onside kicking until Cottage Grove stopped them or their was 0:00 left on the clock. If the final was 126-0, so much the better. 

If you don't believe me, watch what happens to Loboy's career from here. If you think this made him unemployable, you couldn't be more wrong. The publicity from this story going national just made him the hottest commodity in high school football. And wherever he lands, the kids on the good side of that 63-0 score will follow him to the ends of the earth to play for him again. Mark my words.

Onside kicking up by more than eight touchdowns might not be how Marist's administration wants to treat opponents. Or how the Virgin Mary the school was named after would want the game to be played, But it's sure how most high school coaches want to. It's not a job for the merciful. Or the sane.