Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
November 7, 2003, Washington Post

For the Record . . . No Defense

Something very strange happened in a high school football game in Springfield, Illinois, last month. Late in the game with his team trailing badly, Nate Haasis, the senior quarterback for Springfield Southeast High School, faded back to pass. But the defense for Cahokia High didn't even try to stop the play.

You see, the two coaches had agreed to let Haasis throw a final 37-yard pass so that he could break the conference record for most career passing yards. Haasis didn't know about the deal and so he threw the pass and broke the record.

But like a good ball-faking quarterback, Haasis now has fooled everyone. When he learned about the coaches' agreement, Haasis wrote to conference officials asking that the pass not count and that the record be given back.

Haasis, 17, got it exactly right. He knew his "record" wasn't really a record at all.

These sort of phony records have happened before. Two seasons ago, Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre rolled out and fell down on purpose so that New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan could set the record for sacks in a season.

In 1998, Nykesha Sales was injured when she was just one point shy of the record for most points in the history of women's basketball at the University of Connecticut. So the UConn and Villanova coaches agreed to let Sales hobble onto the court and score the first basket of their game so that she would break the record. (The UConn women then let a Villanova player score so that the game started at 2-2.)

But a record in any team sport only means something if the other team is trying its hardest. Anyone can complete a pass to a receiver that no one cares to cover. Anyone can score a basket if the other team is leaving a clear lane to the bucket. Or "tackle" someone who is lying on the ground.

I am sure that the Springfield Southeast and Cahokia coaches meant well and thought they were honoring Haasis for having such a fine high school career. But isn't coaching about always encouraging your players to try their best? Is Haasis really a better quarterback for having completed that last, bogus pass?

It seems to me that the coaches were acting like parents at a picnic who let the youngest kid hit a home run every time at bat. Or who fall down on purpose in the touch football game so that a 4-year-old can run for a touchdown.

Kids wise up to that kind of game pretty quick. They figure out that the games are not much fun, or much of a challenge, if the other side lets you score every time. Soon, kids want to play in a real game -- the kind where both sides are trying to win.

By giving back his record, Nate Haasis was telling everyone that he wanted to play in a real game. If he set a record, he wanted it to be a real record. And for that, Nate Haasis is my idea of a real athlete.