Sidwell football article in post....what are the parents saying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Sidwell has had a student or two play football at a place like Stanford, that is great. But it is a huge overstatement to say the school is producing Division 1 talent. St. Albans had Jonathan Ogden, who played for UCLA and is very possibly going to be in the NFL Hall of Fame someday, but nobody would claim that STA produces Division 1 talent. Please.

I don't think anyone on this thread has ever suggested that Sidwell is any football powerhouse or any sort of regular pipeline to D1A (or even D1AA) football programs. The closest I saw was one person who noted "a handful of D1 football players in Sidwell's past." There seems to be 100% agreement from all the Sidwell people posting here that Sidwell has a mediocre football team (at best). But although it's not a strong program, it's also not a complete wasteland that should be shut down or merged with another school (as a couple people seem to be suggesting).

[Anonymous]

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Look at CJ Uy, Sidwell's best lacrosse player in years. He went to Yale and didn't play a single minute there and is now no longer on the team.

And when he graduates he will have a Yale degree. As he gets in to the real world that will probably matter a whole lot more than if he played lacrosse in college.

[Anonymous]

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Look at CJ Uy, Sidwell's best lacrosse player in years. He went to Yale and didn't play a single minute there and is now no longer on the team.

And when he graduates he will have a Yale degree. As he gets in to the real world that will probably matter a whole lot more than if he played lacrosse in college.

Who said otherwise? If sports can help you gain admission to the college of your choice and/or you want to play collegiate sports, that's great. That wasn't the point. The point is that the Sidwell parents who think their children are getting a great exposure to sports are mistaken. It's a fantastic school, for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Who said otherwise? If sports can help you gain admission to the college of your choice and/or you want to play collegiate sports, that's great. That wasn't the point. The point is that the Sidwell parents who think their children are getting a great exposure to sports are mistaken. It's a fantastic school, for sure.

I am confused by this. The school offers both interscholastic and physical education opportunities for all of its students. Just because varsity football players are not sharing the field with future NFL Hall of Famers does not mean that students are not getting the important aspects of the athletic experience: teamwork, learning how to win and how to lose, etc.

I would be interested in what the PP believes "great exposure" to sports means for kids at this level, particularly for the 97% who are not getting a scholarship or the 99.75% who are not going to become professional athletes.

[Anonymous]

another brutal loss for the Quakers in football. They've given up at least 50 points in every game, which is unheard of. Were there more injuries? And if so, is the school considering cancelling the season?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:another brutal loss for the Quakers in football. They've given up at least 50 points in every game, which is unheard of. Were there more injuries? And if so, is the school considering cancelling the season?

[Anonymous]

Don't think there were significant injuries--normal bumps and bruises that you get even in a winning game. Team is unlikely to win a game this year but losing seasons are not the end of the world. I remember when Columbia had multiple winless seasons and set a record--just noticed they thumped Princeton the other day. If they are playing similarly sized teams (can't imagine Maret is brimming with 300 pounders) there's no additional safety issue. Losing, even by a large margin, is not a reason to cancel. Interesting how football still has a special cultural place such that people wig out over bad losses, even at academic schools with little short non-athletes.

[Anonymous]

There's a difference between having a losing season and losing by 50 points every weekend in football. At the high school level, if you're that overmatched every week, you risk the health of your students, as shown by the past few weeks and having to forfeit a game.

The reason people talk about football so much is that since it is such a violent sport, a talent discrepancy has consequences beyond wins and losses or school pride.

Hopefully this is just a particularly bad year for the team.

[Anonymous]

I cannot believe there are seven pages about this.

Really, it is a relative non-issue. It will be character building for the kids involved, and they will be able to tell students 20 years from now that they were the bridge to a better era in football.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully this is just a particularly bad year for the team.

Every year is a terrible year for Sidwell football.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe there are seven pages about this.

Really, it is a relative non-issue. It will be character building for the kids involved, and they will be able to tell students 20 years from now that they were the bridge to a better era in football.

Starters /1st string/second string juniors and seniors on other teams might as well not even show up-get excused by the coaches and go on college visits. Football is only about 10 games annually . It's not like soccer[year round] or lacrosse or baseball. The Sidwell opponents in effect lose 10% of the season.

Those children don't even get a game to play in.

Many seem to think girls soccer and basketball at the varsity or collegiate level are safe activities. Google girls and concussions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really, it is a relative non-issue.

Not to the Sidwell children/parents affiliated with the football program who want to compete every week on the field. They know now (if they didn't previously) that sports at Sidwell is an afterthought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really, it is a relative non-issue.

Not to the Sidwell children/parents affiliated with the football program who want to compete every week on the field. They know now (if they didn't previously) that sports at Sidwell is an afterthought.

Look, this is a bummer for the kids on the team, their coaches and parents, but it's just ridiculous to say that "sports at Sidwell is (sic) an afterthought." There are many other teams besides football, and some of those teams are doing darned well. Just as the football team deserves the support of the school community, so do those other teams.

[Anonymous]

Sidwell has a great soccer team and several other teams are good. No quibble with cancelling a game because injuries would force kids on the field who might get seriously hurt. But you have to blame the school (and the culture of the school) if there aren't enough kids to field even a JV team.

There is something systemic within Sidwell where they can never field a competitive football or lacrosse team. They should either support the program sufficiently or throw in the towel like GDS.

[Anonymous]

Let's see where the school is 5 years from now, since the multi-million dollar new gym is open.

Such hysteria!