Reply to Landon vs. Georgetown Prep Upper School

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[quote=Anonymous]Who is to blame?

It's a clash of cultures. Mix two chemicals together and you get a reaction. It's neither one's fault.

And there's some history here. Some pretty bad behavior on both sides and incidents that have long lives. A number of years ago a GP student was beaten so badly at the Beach that he was hospitalized.

I have heard that business about "It's Mater Dei where the trouble starts" from the Landon people. I heard that opinion voiced at the Fathers Meeting I described above. Its way off base. Ned Williams and those people at Mater Dei are pretty mild. They aren't stoking any animosity ... especially among 7th and 8th graders.

Now I'm a ex-Prep parent of three athletes who competed in the major sports, so I have only experienced this from one side of the field.

It appears to me that the Landon approach to the world and to athletics drives the GP people crazy. They don't like it one bit.

Athletics are a big deal at Landon and the only school that has been able to match up to them over the years has been Prep. Just read the comments when Landon players and coaches are interviewed in the paper after games. It's Prep, Prep and more Prep. After GP football went to the Baltimore MIAA and they stopped playing Landon in football, the Landon coach was repeatedly quoted in the papers bemoaning the fact that GP wouldn't schedule them. One might even say that they are a little obsessed. Or that without GP, the Landon athletic program loses its principal focus.

The Landon teams are almost always well-coached, tough and seem almost "driven". But at the same there seems to be this British public school expectation that at the end of the game we all should shake hands and be civil. Now I'm not against that, but it doesn't fly with the GP people. Their reaction is more likely to be, "OK you kicked my tail or I kicked yours but that isn't a basis for friendship" Instant culture clash.

Many at GP would be perfectly happy replacing Landon as a principal rival with Gonzaga, a school with which GP has a great deal in common. In fact, the recently re-instituted football series with Gonzaga now is much more important than the Landon game for GP. Both are out of Conference and GP and Gonzaga actually do compete for many of the same students. For the Landon people, the GP game is still the one they circle.

There isn't any solution to this and ithe animosity isn't going away. I have thought at times that this is a couple that should get a divorce. Let GP go to the Catholic league and let the thing rest for 10 years.

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