So, Boy is playing flag football in the city leagues on a freshmen/sophomore team. They are supposed to play other f/s teams. Well, their first game last night was against seniors (some of whom are regular football players) whose average front line must have weighed in around 225 each. The kids got stomped.
Their second game were against a bunch of foul mouthed poor sports (sophomores / juniors / seniors) who intimidated the refs. They were seriously roughing up the boys and generally being hooligans. At half time we (parents) told the ref that he needed to do his job and if things got ugly we would back him up. So, he stepped up to the line and started backing them up 5 yards for each swear word (the f-bombs were flying so hard and fast the grass was starting to wilt) and enforcing open field fouls. This hacked off the poor sports even more and they started in on US on the sidelines. The ref finally made them forfeit the game. I seriously thought that we were going to have a fight with a bunch of high school kids.
Something these kids don't realize (I have seen it happen time and again) they might be top dog in school and think they are tough; but youth and enthusiasm will never out do age and treachery.These are the same type of kids who think they are the sauce on the taco and when they get out in real life can't hack it. Nobody cares who they are and then they try their bully tactics and get their asses handed to them a couple of times. They come crying home from college and end up working in the mini-mart and smokin' dope. There are four of the hot athletes that graduated with my daughters that are doing this exact thing. And it is our community that encourages it.
We are large enough to have two high schools. In fact we have two campus' about two miles apart, but only one high school. This is done so that we can maintain our "athletic" rating in the state. If we split the school then neither is large enough to compete with the rest of the class five-a schools in the state. And athletes are given special status in the town and schools. There have been several incidents, both on and off campus, where average students have been disciplined, but the athletes have skated. And this is wrong.
We did get a new football coach a couple years ago who made his players toe the line. He benched the entire front line for breaking training, and he caught pure hell for it. Parents and people with enough stroke tried to force the school athletic board to determine that he didn't have his athlete's best interest and welfare at heart. He was a winning coach up to that point, he just chose to enforce the rules and it almost cost him. And it is the fault of the community. Us. The parents and adults that have made these kids think they are better than they are and can get away with anything they want.
And my community is not alone in this issue. You can see the results carry over into college athletics and even professional athletics. The amount of felonious misbehavior by athletes in both the collegiate and professional level is unprecedented. Why? Is it that the press is just doing a better job of airing the dirty laundry? Perhaps. It has become quite fashionable to point out the turds in the toilet bowls of our celebrities. But, you also have to admit that there is increased "can't touch me" activity amongst the celebrity crowd.
The swing point is that society is getting sick of it. We are starting to hold celebrities accountable for their actions. We are less squeamish about knocking icons off their pedestals and are willing to send them to jail, where we used to just kind of sweep it under the rug. Hide them from the public eye.
I applauded Charles Barkley when he was being chastised for his actions on and off the court and he said that he was not a hero figure, didn't want to be a hero figure that it was up to the parents to be the hero figure in their children's life. But, sadly, many parents have turned their children over to the village to raise, sacrificing them on the steps of the school and allowing people of questionable morals and ethics to become their heroes. And, like it or not, these celebrity figures need to understand that they are automatically hero figures. Their actions are seen, and copied, by those that wish to attain the same status in life that these "heroes" have, and if they can do it, then so can the average schmo on the street. The majority of the problems can, mostly, be traced back to the ungodly amount of money that athletes are paid.
We can curb these issues as a collective people. We need to continue to hold people accountable for their actions. Make athletics a game again, not a huge business. Make sure our kid's heroes are people they can actually look up to and you would be proud for them to emulate. Become somebody ourselves that our kids would want to be like. Restore the family.Given the actions of the opposing team at the time of their forced forfeiture last evening, both shortly before and shortly after, it has to be said that their behaviour was exacerbated by the fact that they were getting beat by a younger, smaller team. A team.
Jeff Parker - Florida Today
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