Tenth of a point — A win is a win

Just about every time I was part of a winning basketball game — which wasn’t often, mind you — the coach would call it ugly.

I’m not so sure if that was a comment directed at our appearance, or the way we played, but I’m sure it was true regardless.

But whenever anybody calls a win ugly, the following exchange will ultimately end with, “But a win is a win.”

That is as true a statement as there is in high school sports ­­— even if the winner is unclear when the whistle blows.

When I saw the officials and coaches camping out around the scorer’s table Dec. 10 at the Arlington wrestling match, I couldn’t help but think just what a perfect lesson this is to all high school athletes. When you always hear coaches talk about the little things, you never really think that they are counted — that’s why they are the little things. With a meet score tied at 32-32, the scorers had to go through tie-breakers of points taken away by penalty ether by the wrestler (1) or the bench (2), pin falls (3), technical falls (4), major decisions won (5), the number first points scored (6), the number of take downs (7) and finally number of take downs in the first period (8) to finally find an advantage.

Arlington came out victorious in a match that could have easily gone either way and nobody would have known the difference, but I think that every Arlington wrestler now knows that every point counts — or at least is counted, just in case.