You’re supposed to pull unreservedly for your home team. It’s a form of loyalty, perhaps. But sometimes, it’s just hard. Sometimes, you’re glad for every single point the opposition scores. When a game starts with an enormous lead, and all the breaks seem to be going to the home team, and the visitors just seem completely outclassed, it only seems the sensible thing to pull for the visitors.

When the coach pulls out the starters (mostly eighth graders) and allows players from lower grades to play and the lead only grows, the game becomes almost painful to watch, especially when the visitors make so many unforced errors, to mix sports terminology. The frustration on their faces, the despondency on the bench. It hurts just to watch.

Or does it? As the point difference climbs, the visiting team seems to be more heroic. They don’t give up. They don’t slow their pace. They continue fighting even though it’s clear to everyone in the gymnasium that they’re outgunned.

When I was a coach, my one season as a volleyball coach, we faced game after game like this. I admired the girls for going out every time and giving it their best, and I told them as much. “What you did requires more character than the other team exhibited by winning,” I said. For middle schoolers, though, character isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

As I walked out of the gym tonight with most of the final quarter remaining, I glanced back up at the scoreboard and saw how dismal things had become. Part of me wanted to stick around and tell the visitors what courage they’d shown; part of me thought that might be taken as some sort of gloating. In the end, I left hoping their coach had the sense to say those words.