It was early December 1975, and Foxcroft Academy was riding a 36-game regular-season winning streak in boys basketball.

The first 35 had come over the previous two seasons, culminating when Kevin Nelson, a 6-foot-9 center from Southeast Monson, led the Ponies to the 1975 Class B state championship.

By early December of that year, Nelson was already beginning to carve out a successful basketball career at the University of Maine, and the eight other seniors that graduated off that Foxcroft team also had moved on to either college or the real world.

That left the next generation of Ponies to deal with the leftover streak, and for one game that was a good thing.

But then came a trip to nearby Milo to face Penquis. The final score remains obscured to this day by the fog of short-term embarrassment, but the margin was 30 or 40 points – and at a certain point the spread really made no difference.

Heck, if you stopped by the gym today, they may still be adding up points.

But nobody ran up the score that night. One team was light years ahead of the other, Foxcroft was a target of all opponents at the time because of its championship standing, and there was little the new breed of Ponies could do about it – save for paying the price at practice the next day.

The blowout was endured, and life went on.

Indeed, blowouts are as much a part of sporting life as buzzer-beating shots or walk-off home runs, and it will be that way as long as points are tabulated and standings are maintained.

One of the eternal conversations regarding blowouts is what to do to about them, as if something must be done, and like something can be done without substantially changing the spirit of the game.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference is attempting to do something. That group has adopted a “score management” policy for high school football that will suspend coaches in that state whose teams win a game by more than the arbitrary number of 50 points.

Some in Connecticut blame that association’s decision on a single coach who won four games by more than 50 points last season.

And sure, a coach can be to blame for such lopsided games – both the winning coach and the losing coach. The winning coach might leave his starters in too long, but he also may be guilty simply of developing a better program.

And the losing coach may be in the wrong business.

Maine high school sports are not without its share of blowouts, whether it’s a 62-6 football game, an 87-13 basketball game or a 14-1 soccer match.

In football, there already is a mechanism available to deal with the issue, in which the clock continues to run after plays that end out-of-bounds during lopsided games upon the mutual consent of the coaches involved.

Supporters of the 50-point rule in football may cite the precedent of the 10-run rule in high school baseball or the 12-run rule in softball.

My sense in all of these scenarios as that the adults sell the kids short. In most cases the kids come across much more resilient in either victory or defeat than those involved on the periphery.

And there are lessons to be learned from all possible outcomes. Take that long-forgotten (by most) Foxcroft-Penquis basketball game. It taught at least one participant that if you can’t play the games well enough, maybe it’s better to try writing about them instead.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or by e-mail at eclark@bangordailynews.net.