SMH! Had to LOL at the bolded part though! Get 'em, son! Youth League institutes TD limit to hold back 11-year-old By Cameron Smith Usually we try to celebrate great young athletes and their prodigious potential. In Arkansas, one youth football league is instituting a dramatic rule to hold back its brightest star, all in an attempt to level the playing field for other competitors. According to Arkansas Fox affiliate Fox 16, 11-year-old Demias Jimerson has emerged as such a dominant running back that the Wilson Intermediate Football League he plays in has reinstated a bylaw called the "Madre Hill rule," which bars him from scoring a touchdown if he has already scored three times and his team has a lead of 14 points or more. The rule is named after former University of Arkansas star and Oakland Raider Madre Hill, who, like Jimerson, played youth football in the Malvern, Ark., area. Hill proved so adept at getting the ball into the end zone whenever he touched it that the WIFL came up with the rule to try and keep scores from getting too out of hand. Now it has brought the same statute back for Jimerson, saying that the rule isn't meant to punish him, but rather to ensure that the other 21 players on the field stay involved. "The other players on both teams, 21 are just left sort of, this is all Demias," WIFL commissioner Terri Bryant, who is also Jimerson's Intermediate School principal, told Fox 16. "So that's why the Madre Hill Rule has been implemented. "[Jimerson] is going to score almost every time he touches the ball." It turns out that Bryant's assessment of Jimerson's talent is only a slight exaggeration. In one of the two games the sixth-grader played before the Madre Hill rule was implemented, he scored an incredible seven touchdowns. For his part, Jimerson said he's OK with the ruling, though he was surprised when it was first implemented. He also knows that when he becomes a seventh-grader in 2012 no limits will be applicable, so it will be impossible to penalize him for scoring too much. "I got, kinda got shocked because I didn't know that was gonna happen, but it did," said Jimerson. Adding, "I'm ok with it." Given his current production with a bizarre rule holding him back, the prospect of Demias Jimerson "unleashed" should be a terrifying prospect for any future opponents, both in the WIFL and across the state. :smt045 ---- To watch him in action... http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/...D-limit-to-hold-back-11?urn=highschool-wp6562
I kinda understand these type of rules - it's all about sportsmanship - but, I'm not sure they are right. In competition, when you lose; it makes you learn and, get better. Sometimes much better.
Maybe he should play up in age for the challenge. He is obviously way better than those his chronological age.
Just saying, this isn't the kind of rule Black parents/coaches implement in the spirit of 'fair play'. Lil dude must be really hurting kid's feelings out there.:smt089 If the kid scores 10 TDs, so what??? There's no mercy rule in HS/college/NFL football.
What's most impressive to me about this kid is his positive attitude. He's not letting it get him down, & that tells me his parents are raising a strong, secure young man. Kudos to him & his parents.
It has been suggested that he's been trained to give the PC "response". I'm sure there's been a lot of "that's some BULLSHIT!" going on behind the scenes from his family and friends.
No question! Football's objective is to score TD's and to stop the opponent from scoring them - end of (sport) story. If they want to protect other kid's feelings, sign them up for Badminton. Or Crochet. It's like telling a sprinter in a race to slow down to the others can catch up. I even heard on the radio the other day that at one school, some kids didn't do well at an activity while others did, so they scrapped the activity all together so as not to make the failing kids feel bad.
It didn't come across that way to me. The TD rule is bullshit, but crying like a whiny victim & throwing a tantrum about bullshit is not an effective way to improve a situation. Of course he was surprised, upset, pissed off, disappointed, discouraged etc. (& so was everyone else), but as he said, he knows that he'll be able to get out there & do his thing next year without there being any rule against it. Yeah, the situation sucks, but shit happens in life & folks either have to learn to roll with it or let it kick their asses. A person's accomplishments & abilities should be encouraged & celebrated, but the reality is that doesn't always happen. The important thing is to learn not to let shit get the best of you.
