After beating a team 161-2, the coach of a high school girls basketball team was vilified. Now, INSIDE EDITION was there as he returned to the court.
The nation's most controversial coach makes his first appearance since his team won a high school basketball game by the humiliating score of 161 to 2!
An announcer at the game yells, "Ladies and gentlemen, please rise and welcome the return of Coach Anderson!"
Coach Michael Anderson returned to cheers following his suspension for two games for allowing his Arroyo Valley High School girls basketball team to crush Bloomington High in Southern California.
One cell phone video shows the rout. The score was 104 to zero at halftime!
"Final score, 162 to two. It's a damn shame," says the man recording the video.
Coach Anderson is now at the center of a national debate about winning and sportsmanship.
"These are children," said one online commentator. "They are supposed to learn good sportsmanship, something clearly (he) lacks and fails to teach," they added.
ESPN Radio Host Colin Cowherd supports the coach, saying, "We want our kids to have grit. You know how you get grit? You lost 161-2."
Coach Anderson spoke excusively to INSIDE EDITION and apologized for running up the score. He said he pulled all of his best players at the end of the first half, but didn't tell his bench players to take it easy on their overmatched opponents.
Anderson added, "Everybody's making this out to be about me, okay, at the end of the day, it's just for the kids. I do everything I do for these kids."
He has received support from the players and parents alike. One player said, "I feel like he didn't do anything wrong. But, you know, we support our coach all the way and I appreciate everything he did for us."
A parent commented, "I don't think he should have gone easy on the other team because that's teaching the girls the wrong thing."
The coach didn't hold back in his first game back from suspension, the final score this time was 82 to 20.
