This bullying thing has gone too far

Javelin wrote:

Toyman01 wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

HappyAndy wrote: WARNING: TREADJACK & POSSIBLE FLOUNDER! I hate high school football. I think its the biggest waste of taxpayer money that a local government could ever create for it's citizens. I know in states like Texass I could be jailed for that statement, but I stand firmly by it. If youth football were funded entirely by private money, I'd see no problem with that. Same goes for other inherently costly sports like hockey. Back on topic, I see no bullying here. Get over it.

Hear hear!!

Yeah!! Lets get rid of the band, the drama club, the orchestra and all that artsy crap while we're at it. What a waste of taxpayers money.

Makes a damn sight more sense then the stuff they did get rid of like auto shop, wood shop, home ec...

HEAR HEAR!

Javelin wrote: Makes a damn sight more sense then the stuff they did get rid of like auto shop, wood shop, home ec...

Ahhh come on man! When's the last time you knew someone who got a job doing so called "auto repair" or "carpentry" or had use for anything like "financial knowledge"

Everyone knows, the big jobs and money are in symphonies and regional playhouses!

Javelin wrote:

Toyman01 wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

HappyAndy wrote: WARNING: TREADJACK & POSSIBLE FLOUNDER! I hate high school football. I think its the biggest waste of taxpayer money that a local government could ever create for it's citizens. I know in states like Texass I could be jailed for that statement, but I stand firmly by it. If youth football were funded entirely by private money, I'd see no problem with that. Same goes for other inherently costly sports like hockey. Back on topic, I see no bullying here. Get over it.

Hear hear!!

Yeah!! Lets get rid of the band, the drama club, the orchestra and all that artsy crap while we're at it. What a waste of taxpayers money.

Makes a damn sight more sense then the stuff they did get rid of like auto shop, wood shop, home ec...

Agreed on the shop and actual practical useful skills classes. But I'd also argue that there's more of an argument to be made for the arts in HS than for HS football. We were always having fundraisers for the band activities, and our parents contributed a lot when we wanted to do more stuff. Band uniforms and instruments (drum sticks and heads aside) lasted quite a while. And while no more people likely went on to become professional musicians than went on to be professional football players, many of the musicians did still continue to use their skills through college and beyond even if just in a hobby capacity. I'll always consider the arts as being more crucial than sports. Hundreds or thousands of years from now it's doubtful that who won or even played in any sport will be common knowledge, but it would be unsurprising if some of the arts from today are still around and known by most people just like most of us know at least some music, paintings, scupltures, etc. from hundreds or thousands of years ago.

As a coach, I have learned the worst thing I can do is tell my players to avoid doing their best.

I actually lost a game once doing that. My players had to take an embarrassing defeat to a weak team because I coached badly and told them to play under their ability. The loosing team came back on us and won.

Never again.

Conquest351 wrote: I saw that last night. My jaw was on the floor. How the hell is that bullying? Our society is shot to hell...

No. Just one parent is being a dick. Everyone else is behaving normally. Looks to me like everyone else involved was fine with this.

Not worth getting rid of a valuable tool because some odd ball tries to abuse it (and fails) once in a blue moon.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

Our best kicker was a female......she transferred our sophmore year from someplace in Ft. Wayne and was a soccer player. My school didn't have soccer at all, so she tried out and earned the kicker position. No real butthurt, no real outcry, hell it never even made the news. Our band was also completely unsubsidized.....I still have a $750 saxaphone to prove that.

But alas, we were a lowly 2A school in the middle of a corn field that prided itself upon baseball.

I almost posted this up when I saw it originally on Monday, but I was busy. This team passed a total of 10 times.......and still put up that many points. Top it off by the fact they had scored 70's and 80's every previous game, I see nothing wrong whatsoever.

ArthurDent wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

HappyAndy wrote: WARNING: TREADJACK & POSSIBLE FLOUNDER! I hate high school football. I think its the biggest waste of taxpayer money that a local government could ever create for it's citizens. I know in states like Texass I could be jailed for that statement, but I stand firmly by it. If youth football were funded entirely by private money, I'd see no problem with that. Same goes for other inherently costly sports like hockey. Back on topic, I see no bullying here. Get over it.

Hear hear!!

Same thing could be said again High School bands. Annoyingly I never seem to end up in these highly subsidized activities.

I was in band. We had fund raisers to pay for stuff, we had to pay for any instruments that needed to be rented. Basically, if you wanted to play, you had to pay. This was in the 80s.

I was also in hockey- players had to pay the whole thing. And this is why you see very few school based organized programs, and, instead have a different set up.

Some of this isn't tax payer but user payer.

aircooled wrote: I find you aggressive stance on "anti bullying" intimidating and I think you should stop. I think your behavior can be considered bullying and should not be allowed as we have a zero tolerance for that sort of thing. Just say not to anti-bullying bullying bullying.

I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.

While it might be a good idea for them to put a mercy rule in place, it seems like the coach wasn't deliberately running up the score. It's too bad the rules require an official bullying investigation, but I hope the official finding is "Complaint was a bad joke."

alfadriver wrote:

ArthurDent wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

HappyAndy wrote: WARNING: TREADJACK & POSSIBLE FLOUNDER! I hate high school football. I think its the biggest waste of taxpayer money that a local government could ever create for it's citizens. I know in states like Texass I could be jailed for that statement, but I stand firmly by it. If youth football were funded entirely by private money, I'd see no problem with that. Same goes for other inherently costly sports like hockey. Back on topic, I see no bullying here. Get over it.

Hear hear!!

Same thing could be said again High School bands. Annoyingly I never seem to end up in these highly subsidized activities.

I was in band. We had fund raisers to pay for stuff, we had to pay for any instruments that needed to be rented. Basically, if you wanted to play, you had to pay. This was in the 80s. I was also in hockey- players had to pay the whole thing. And this is why you see very few school based organized programs, and, instead have a different set up. Some of this isn't tax payer but user payer.

I graduated HS in 2008. I was in Baseball and Hockey (club, not school sponsored), my brothers were in Swimming and Football.

All of us were out fundraising. Carwashes, raffle tickets, concession stands, selling firewood, selling mulch, selling popcorn, selling (insert whatever). I did the most with hockey, since there was 0 school sponsorship (all from the players), but my brothers and I each had goals we had to meet for fundraising for every sport.

fritzsch wrote: My highschools soccer team beat a team something like 15-1, first game of the season against a team that was playing its first game ever. Their soccer program was just started that year. Our coach kept in the starters and told the players to give it everything. It was very unsportsmanlike and the team and coach got rightly chewed out by our athletic director.

In KY in High School, we had a mercy rule. A game would end once one team was up by ten and it would end the game as long it is was half time or after. We mercy ruled every team in our district one year but goals scored counted towards getting ranked in the state so we would try to rack up as many goals as possible. I never felt bad about it.

In reply to Javelin:

I took a "manufacturing technology" class in high school. It was awesome since it was essentially an all-in-one shop class that combined woodshop, metal shop, metal casting and machining. I went to this high school because the local Vo-tech school (Benson) had dropped its auto-shop by the time I was looking for a high school.

When my older brother was in high school, he actually took a TV production class and produced some shows for cable access (including one on Noise complaints at PIR). That high school is now one of the most renowned for gang violence and drop outs.

Truly sad to see what has happened to the school districts around here and how everyone is pushed towards college or into a black hole with little in between. Combine this trend with the overall wussification of kids who get "participant" ribbons, etc. it sometimes isn't looking good for the future.

Though, there is a balance that needs to be reached to avoid the win at all cost stuff that can happen with kid sports, mostly due to over zealous parents that try to live their dreams through their children.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

Toyman01 wrote: Yeah!! Lets get rid of the band, the drama club, the orchestra and all that artsy crap while we're at it. What a waste of taxpayers money.

Apples != Oranges Those things you mention are the first things to go when cuts come down but they are arguably more contributory to an education.

So drama club is arguably more contributory to education? Don't know 'bout you, but my kids don't need no stinkin' drama club...they're plenty good at acting and making drama all on their own. But now that my son plays football, he knows how to do a perfect form tackle on a bully in the school yard. So you tell me what's more valuable.

Seriously, even as a football parent, I agree that many schools place unequal value on football. But back on topic, I'm also more in favor of a mercy rule. I know baseball has it.

In reply to Turboswede and the general consensus here: Let's keep HS sports but put in at least a 50% user pays rule.......and ban parents from attending. I'm only half joking about the banning of parents. If you just let a bunch of kids play a sport, have a few adults there to make sure nobody is hurt and such I bet the kids would just have a ball. It's when Tommy's dad starts pushing the issue that things get outta control.

On a side note, a guy here at work coaches a football team, not a school team, just an after school league. The league has a rule that, at any point in time if there is a 31 point spread between the teams involved, the coach of the team in the lead has to pay a $100 or $200 fine!

DrBoost wrote: In reply to Turboswede and the general consensus here: Let's keep HS sports but put in at least a 50% user pays rule.......and ban parents from attending. I'm only half joking about the banning of parents. If you just let a bunch of kids play a sport, have a few adults there to make sure nobody is hurt and such I bet the kids would just have a ball. It's when Tommy's dad starts pushing the issue that things get outta control. On a side note, a guy here at work coaches a football team, not a school team, just an after school league. The league has a rule that, at any point in time if there is a 31 point spread between the teams involved, the coach of the team in the lead has to pay a $100 or $200 fine!

What happens if there are 16 safety's?

Local county athletic program costs $1.2M. Taxes supply about 15% of that, the rest is raised by the parents and students. I can't find any budgetary numbers for the arts programs, though they do have a $400M School of the Arts. It doesn't even have a football team.

I don't have a dog in the hunt as far as athletics. All my kids are in chorus or drama. I didn't play sports and they have no interest in them.

A well rounded kid is just that, and athletics are a part of it. Blanket statements, that football is stupid and deserves no funding, are just as stupid as statements like, the arts are stupid and deserve no funding.

mtn wrote: All of us were out fundraising. Carwashes, raffle tickets, concession stands, selling firewood, selling mulch, selling popcorn, selling (insert whatever). I did the most with hockey, since there was 0 school sponsorship (all from the players), but my brothers and I each had goals we had to meet for fundraising for every sport.

I'm curious about something: is all that fundraising really more efficient that figuring out a way to work directly for pay? When I see a dozen teenagers working a $5 car wash (see this all summer long), I always think they could be making $120/hr directly doing something rather than scratching the sh*t out of poor unsuspecting cars :). Unless they're washing 24+ cars/hr (ignoring expenses), they would come out ahead. Worse is 5 kids selling cookies for $1ea.

mtn wrote:

DrBoost wrote: In reply to Turboswede and the general consensus here: Let's keep HS sports but put in at least a 50% user pays rule.......and ban parents from attending. I'm only half joking about the banning of parents. If you just let a bunch of kids play a sport, have a few adults there to make sure nobody is hurt and such I bet the kids would just have a ball. It's when Tommy's dad starts pushing the issue that things get outta control. On a side note, a guy here at work coaches a football team, not a school team, just an after school league. The league has a rule that, at any point in time if there is a 31 point spread between the teams involved, the coach of the team in the lead has to pay a $100 or $200 fine!

What happens if there are 16 safety's?

send the cheerleaders out instead of your defense after 15

4cylndrfury wrote:

mtn wrote:

DrBoost wrote: In reply to Turboswede and the general consensus here: Let's keep HS sports but put in at least a 50% user pays rule.......and ban parents from attending. I'm only half joking about the banning of parents. If you just let a bunch of kids play a sport, have a few adults there to make sure nobody is hurt and such I bet the kids would just have a ball. It's when Tommy's dad starts pushing the issue that things get outta control. On a side note, a guy here at work coaches a football team, not a school team, just an after school league. The league has a rule that, at any point in time if there is a 31 point spread between the teams involved, the coach of the team in the lead has to pay a $100 or $200 fine!

What happens if there are 16 safety's?

send the cheerleaders out instead of your defense after 15

We regulalrly heard people joke in college that the football coach should have suited up the marching band instead of his players since we could at least make progress down the field, and in some cases had members (the tuba section & bass drummers) who were bigger than the football players.

We have a $5M football stadium for the local high school. They have another 2 fields behind the school for practice. The coach isn't a teacher. He is a football coach that gets paid a salary.

They did not sell any berkeleying cookies for that. It came out of tax money.

My beef isn't with the game of football at all. It is the lopsided allocation of funds to something that only maybe 100 students, all male, out of 3000 kids can participate in and due to recent cuts in spending... is untouched. It might as well be the US defense budget.

alfadriver wrote:

ArthurDent wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

HappyAndy wrote: WARNING: TREADJACK & POSSIBLE FLOUNDER! I hate high school football. I think its the biggest waste of taxpayer money that a local government could ever create for it's citizens. I know in states like Texass I could be jailed for that statement, but I stand firmly by it. If youth football were funded entirely by private money, I'd see no problem with that. Same goes for other inherently costly sports like hockey. Back on topic, I see no bullying here. Get over it.

Hear hear!!

Same thing could be said again High School bands. Annoyingly I never seem to end up in these highly subsidized activities.

I was in band. We had fund raisers to pay for stuff, we had to pay for any instruments that needed to be rented. Basically, if you wanted to play, you had to pay. This was in the 80s. I was also in hockey- players had to pay the whole thing. And this is why you see very few school based organized programs, and, instead have a different set up. Some of this isn't tax payer but user payer.

It was the same with us. The ONLY thing successful in my high school was our Marching Band. Top-3 state finalist for 3 straight years, top 7 for 8. While our basketball team went 3-13 my senior year and our football team had one winning season in my 6 years at the Jr-Sr high school... and by "winning" I mean .500. The athletics dept got new uniforms every season. All transportation costs were paid for by the school (buses, fuel and drivers) for any away games.

The band? We had to pay for the fuel and find bus driver's to volunteer their time to drive us. There were 380 kids 9-12 in my high school. Our band was 100-125 members with a 30 member color guard. Our uniforms were 15 years old when I started high school. We had instruments that had been there 20 years and were constantly needing repairs. We didn't get a dime in the 4 years I was involved from the school district.

So yeah.... apples to oranges here to compare athletics to band/choir. WE had 2-3 fundraisers a year pay for what we needed and a band parents organization that made the school board look like amateurs.

Funding is extremely variable around this country for athletics, arts etc. They are part of public school budgets for the most part, when tax money is at stake, giving the tax payers the option to fund or not fund. No they aren't line items in most communities, but it is certainly in the realm of making happen with the proper choice in school boards and other lower level community leadership. Many of these activities have the potential to recoup expenses by charging entry fees, whether it be a concert or a game. Whether your community chooses to do it is again your issue to deal with. There is value in all these activities and it's within your rights to change it if you don't care for it, with majority rules. As to the original post, certainly not bullying.

mfennell wrote:

mtn wrote: All of us were out fundraising. Carwashes, raffle tickets, concession stands, selling firewood, selling mulch, selling popcorn, selling (insert whatever). I did the most with hockey, since there was 0 school sponsorship (all from the players), but my brothers and I each had goals we had to meet for fundraising for every sport.

I'm curious about something: is all that fundraising really more efficient that figuring out a way to work directly for pay? When I see a dozen teenagers working a $5 car wash (see this all summer long), I always think they could be making $120/hr directly doing something rather than scratching the sh*t out of poor unsuspecting cars :). Unless they're washing 24+ cars/hr (ignoring expenses), they would come out ahead. Worse is 5 kids selling cookies for $1ea.

More efficient? No, not even close.

But if you are in 2 or 3 sports, a tough courseload, and any additional extra cirriculars (I had hockey, baseball, guitar, guitar club that my brother and I started, and Math club), you don't have the schedule to allow for a part-time job. Besides that, child labor laws, actual availability of jobs for that many kids, etc., make it difficult.

And you would be somewhat surprised at some of the donations. We had a guy at a car wash pull up in a Dodge 3500 4x4 dually quad-cab. He gave us $100 for what was, at best, a $15 wash. Besides that, we supplied all the tax information for anyone wanting to deduct it.

Life sucks, get a helmet.

HappyAndy wrote: WARNING: TREADJACK & POSSIBLE FLOUNDER! I hate high school football. I think its the biggest waste of taxpayer money that a local government could ever create for it's citizens. I know in states like Texass I could be jailed for that statement, but I stand firmly by it. If youth football were funded entirely by private money, I'd see no problem with that. Same goes for other inherently costly sports like hockey. Back on topic, I see no bullying here. Get over it.

Without wanting to be "that guy", most high school football programs are money MAKERS for schools. When I was in high school, the football program helped fund all of the other sports that nobody would pay to watch (like tennis and golf).

Sure, there are some costs to the school, like building a field and bleachers, but I'm sure in those big states (like Texas), HS Saturday night football rakes in the cash.

I tend to agree that programs like these are slightly less important when we have a nationwide average dropout rate over 20%. I also read recently that nearly 15% of HS GRADUATES are functionally illiterate. Something seems wrong there.