By Preston Williams
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Did you hear? Crossland Principal Charles Thomas canceled the remainder of the football season -- two varsity games and two junior varsity games -- because of what a county news release called "unsportsmanlike conduct during and after games."
The baby-with-the-bathwater move infuriated many players and parents and robbed about 70 boys of two weeks of after-school activities. Instead of allowing the suspensions of four players and the expulsion of a fifth to serve as punishment for a game-halting on-field incident against Potomac (Md.) on Oct. 24, Thomas shut down the program and fired the assistant coaches. Eric Knight resigned as head coach but remains the school's athletic director.
In making such a shortsighted decision, Thomas gave his students an example of how not to deal with adversity and turned his back on two weeks of teachable moments that the additional practice time and game experience could have afforded.
Why not keep the team together and make the coaches spend half of each remaining practice session discussing sportsmanship, with an open invitation for the principal to share his insights?
Coincidentally, the news release makes reference to introducing a "character development component into the sports program" at Crossland. Well, Thomas missed a perfect place to start.
Thomas's actions did, however, inadvertently result in a valuable math lesson: 70 players x 2 weeks of missed practices and games and study halls = more than 2,000 idle after-school hours. Anybody crazy about those prospects, not just at Crossland but at any high school in the Washington area?
Several Crossland players said team members cried when Thomas broke the news to them last Wednesday that the season was over.
"It was heartbreaking for me," senior wide receiver-defensive back Delante White said.
"I believe they could have sat down with us, [told] us fighting is not involved in football and it shouldn't be tolerated," senior wide receiver-defensive back Malcolm Green said. "Now we don't have football anymore. What do we have? They took it from us."
There was collateral damage. The first canceled game was at Largo -- the Lions' homecoming. Largo held a homecoming pep rally but had no homecoming game, and the athletic department could not pocket the estimated $1,500 to $3,500 that it would have earned from concession sales that night.
This week's would-be opponent, Gwynn Park, will be denied the satisfaction of completing an unbeaten regular season on its own merits, in front of its home crowd. The Yellow Jackets will have a week off before their first playoff game, placing their first-round postseason opponent at a competitive disadvantage.
In other words, the only end-around being run at Crossland these last two weeks of the football season is the one by Thomas, skirting his responsibility to better inform parents about why he shut down the programs, including a seemingly innocent JV squad riding a four-game winning streak.
"I was surprised that the football season was ended," said Knight, hired by Thomas two years ago. "I just thought the people who were to blame would be punished." Knight declined to comment further.
When it comes to behavior on the football field, Crossland has the kind of reputation that would rightfully concern a principal. This time, after an on-field incident halted the game, with Potomac leading 53-0, the Potomac players were directed to get on their bus. Moments later, a Crossland player threw his helmet at the bus, and other players rid themselves of gear in an apparent attempt to jump the fence that separated the Crossland players from the bus.
A Prince George's sheriff's deputy used pepper spray to subdue Crossland players, and the older brother of a Cavalier was arrested for failure to comply with a lawful order and other infractions.
It was the second consecutive year that the Potomac-Crossland game was stopped early because of an on-field incident. But did this warrant canceling the balance of the season.
"If two people in the classroom are acting up, are you going to get rid of the whole class, or teach the 28 that really want to learn?" said Gwynn Park Coach Danny Hayes. "At least give them the two weeks. They might have heard something that might have changed their lives.
"Locking the doors is not the answer. You've got to open the doors and do something for the kids who were doing the right thing."
Children come first. Hmmm. We'll have to remember that.
a pahoops question-where was the principal at this game if they had trouble the year before, or did he conveniently not attend.