Only in the South: Why would a state champion fire its coach?

High school football scores tend to be lopsided, largely because most leagues are comprised of have's & have not's, the latter being the football equivalent of "tomato cans" in boxing, opponents who are so overmatched, they'd have trouble with a Pop Warner squad. However, in Virginia, a state football championship brought a terrible price for Carl Turner, coach of Bishop Sullivan Catholic High in Virginia Beach.

Turner lost his job.

SAY WHAT?!?

Turner's crime was no different than any number of coaches at the same level across the country. He ran up the score on overmatched opponents, in defiance of an edict from administrators at BSCHS. On Wednesday, the school released an official statement claiming Turner resigned to spend more time with his family. However, according to Yahoo!, Turner claims he was coerced into signing off on the statement from the school's spin doctors. They didn't want it to get out that they weren't thrilled with how he went about it. Oh? Haven't they watched enough college games down there? Where most schools run it up in order to increase their standing with the polls, and schedule at least 2-3 "tomato cans" per year?

Apparently, just because it's a Catholic school in a Southern state means you can pull in the reins and be different from the rest. Fair enough, but it was the way they went about this that was all wrong. As Turner himself said, after copping to the piling on in a local newspaper, the administration would've been better served if they dismissed him sooner than this just for running it up. If running up the score was a crime, most college coaches would be shuffling around more often, and pro coaches, like a certain Weasel in New England, would be getting grilled under greater scrutiny than they already are.

Private academies in my home district don't have a problem with running it up on overmatched opponents. It just happens that for some of them, there's just too many mismatches in their leagues. As the Yahoo! article suggests, this story ain't over. Not by a long shot. I'm sure there's more to this, but we'll get an answer sometime next decade.....