Entitlement. Winning at all costs. Have we gone too far?

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​Win at all costs or accept the rub of the green. What’s a more important lesson for teachers and coaches to imbue upon young athletes?

As the stakes grow higher in college sport so too does the expectation around performance of both schools and athletes.

Few would argue there is anything wrong with encouraging competitiveness or committing greater resources to open up realistic professional pathways.

At what point though does the urge to win become unsporting or worse suggest a culture of entitlement exists among certain schools and athletes?

In theory this year’s National Secondary Schools Water Polo quarter-final between Saint Kentigern College and St Peter’s College should have resulted in a routine victory for the former.

St Kent’s have been regular contenders to win Nationals and in the 2018 Auckland competition finished five places above St Peter’s - winning their March 11 meeting by a comfortable margin of 7-3.

At Nationals, St Peter’s upset St Kent’s 3-2 to advance to the semi-finals - or so they thought.

An error by the duty team at the scorer’s table resulted in a technical breach of the rules whereby a St Peter’s player was permitted to re-enter play following sitting out a penalty which should have seen the player excluded and a substitute player enter the game. The incident occurred with 42 seconds of play remaining in the match.  

St Kent’s lodged a protest with tournament organisers based on the error made by the score bench. The protest was made just after 5pm.

At 9:30pm both teams were summoned from their accommodation to replay the last 42 seconds of the game - well after scheduled fixtures had finished for the day.

The final score at the conclusion of the replayed match was a 3-3 draw and St Kent’s went on to win the penalty shootout and progress to the semifinal at the expense of St Peter’s who were eliminated.

How such a ruling occurred is worth investigating. It illustrates hapless administration by New Zealand Water Polo (a separate, but nonetheless interesting issue) and perhaps a sense of entitlement from a St Kent’s team expecting victory.

The appeal was logged by St Kent's following a mandatory $100 cash deposit paid to the NZWP Disputes and Disciplinary committee within the timeframe required for protests.

NZWP didn’t receive the protest in written form St Kent's nor did St Peter's receive any information as to what the protest was about from both St Kent's or NZWP.

After several hours of deliberation and confusion the NZWP Disputes and Disciplinary committee ruled that FINA Rule 11.5 had been breached. Rule 11.5 states:

“If a game (or part of a game) must be replayed, then goals, personal fouls, and timeouts that occurred during the time to be replayed are deleted from the game score sheet, however brutality, misconduct, and any red card exclusions are recorded on the game score sheet.”

The rules allowing the replaying of a game were not produced at the hearing, but despite no written record of the rules NZWP overturned the result.

How did that happen?

A 24 year old precedent.

At the 1994 World Championships in Rome part of a match between Canada and Russia was replayed based on a protest in regard to a referees decision.

Even if St Kent’s appeal was legally correct does committing to re-enter the pool on the basis of such an obscure anomaly appear to be a case of sour grapes? It certainly looks that way.

St Kent's management was invited to respond, but politely declined. Water Polo New Zealand was asked to explain, but referred College Sport Media to the New Zealand Secondary School Sports Council.

The disappointment of shattered ambitions aside, human error happens all the time in sport, ask Sir Graham Henry. Should all sport be appealed and replayed because of honest human error?  Life doesn’t usually offer up second chances. Rough as that may be, that is the reality.

Surely replaying part of the match, late at night, doesn't enhance the reputation of a school or create goodwill within the sport?

Unsurprisingly St Kent's lost their semi-final the following day.

When asked to review this extraordinary case the New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports council observed:
“We respect the mandate of the Disputes and Disciplinary body to make the decisions they are charged....However we also recognise that the decision is extremely unusual and unprecedented in New Zealand Secondary School sport in any code in our experience.”

Furthermore:

“The questionable relevance of the precedent to school sport today, the lack of specific guidance in the FINA rules and the unprecedented nature based on our research and experience of the decision in any sport in New Zealand should be cause for some reflection.”

Would this even be an issue if St Peter’s had retained their lead and advanced?

Perhaps it's unfair to isolate an extremely unusual case as evidence of a growing culture of undue entitlement and embellished self importance within high school sport.

Anecdotally however it's not difficult to find examples of questionable ethics and spoiled athletes within the College Sport environment.

Should we be concerned about this?

If we are what can we do about it?

Even 42 seconds is time to think about it.

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