As Founder and Editor-in-Chief of High School Football America, I’ve tried I stick to the good stories of high school football. For the most part during my 40-years in the business, 99% of the them are good. However, more-and-more the high school sports pages are being filled with headlines that are awful.
Case-and-point – the cancellation of the football season at Sayreville High School in New Jersey after the horrific announcement of a sexual hazing ritual. Other than writing the original story about the season being cancelled, I’ve stayed away from writing about the specific details that have come-out in various news stories. Bottom line, if you want to know about the ugly and disgusting details in Sayreville, there are plenty of places to find them.
What got me to write about Sayreville today is a story from Washington State that has me asking the question, what is going on in the high school sports world?!
The Washington story I’m referring to (you can watch the video above) is about Hoquiam High School defensive tackle Tyler Smith, who has been allowed to play with his teammates while facing not one, but two rape charges.
KOMOnews.com reports that Smith is facing criminal charges from raping a girl this past summer and one in 2012. Smith’s attorney says that his client is voluntarily leaving the team, because he didn’t want to be a distraction.
The KOMOnews.com story states that “Superintendent Mike Parker with the Hoquiam School District said he’s sickened by the allegations, but had earlier endorsed coaches’ decision to allow Smith to play on the football team.”
Both of these horrible abuse stories anger me for the same reasons – adults in leadership roles don’t appear to be leading. I hope that winning at all cost isn’t coming into the equation in either of the cases, but we all know that it probably is. As a society, I believe we need to make sure that the drive to win games doesn’t take precedence over losses…and the losses I’m referring to are the losses being suffered by the young boys in Sayreville or the two girls in Washington.
