From a personal perspective, and with a developmental eye, I have to agree with Coach Tim. I've been on the receiving end of double digits far more often than on the dishing end, I know that with the right attitude, that time on the field can be made to work for the losing team--much more so than the winning one, actually. Cutting the time short essentially says to a team, "You have no business out here and it's a waste of everyone's time to have you on the field right now." However, if a team is not competitive, it's their business to LEARN to compete. Sometimes one of the best ways to learn to compete is to have someone kick your tail until you figure out how to stop them from kicking your tail so much. That was our benchmark--to show improved results against top-notch teams as we developed.
If you take away that playing time, you take away the opportunity to experience just how a quality team plays the game--the opportunity to see the moves and patterns up close, to see how the pieces fit together, and, given enough repetitions, perhaps figure out firsthand how to defend against and even replicate some of the tactics of a quality side. You just have to be willing to accept the lesson for what it is rather than resent the loss.
It was just a week ago today that my girls got an 11-1 lesson from a talent-laden Hilton Head Island team. The goal we scored to make it 2-1 was a short-lived moral victory just over midway through the first half; the remaining 55 or so minutes were the lesson. Do I wish the time had gotten cut short while the score still looked close, or that HHI had kept all of their starters on the bench and passed in circles to make the scoreboard look more "respectable"? Heck, no. Every touch was a valuable lesson, and I could visibly see the light come on and adjustments made a few times when they saw things unfold on the field that I had only been able to describe to them in practice. Games like that can make you a better team in the long run, and my girls did not leave bitter and broken...they walked out with their heads up and realizing what they'd learned in the process.
Not least among those lessons was how quickly things can go south when you start backing away after being hit by really talented competition instead of continuing to charge forward crying, "FREEEDOOOMM!!"
