Football thoughts
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009Start a baseball or a basketball league in Eastern Idaho and no one even mentions it. No one cares. Just another league. In fact the guys from the other leagues will even help you market yours. Start another football league, or tourney, or even a new camp and you could get hammered by the “old school” guys.
People worry about a lot of things - like not being in control. Or letting something grow. Or change. Perhaps become better. Evolving. The fear of not controlling every aspect of youth football in east Idaho has lead some people threaten, defame, and lie about those of us who would rather have the youth program evolve than stay, “The way we’ve always done it.”
They mandate that if you practice (that’s right practice) with another team in your league the head coach will be suspended for a game. (No joke, I know of a coach that happened to last year. The funny thing was that there were three teams involved and one coach got suspended.) We feel teams should be encouraged to practice together. They want all teams in an area to be equal, we feel every player should be able to play at their skill level and not be forced to play against far superior or inferior competition based solely on age.
The “old school” league also won’t allow any of the teams to play a game they didn’t schedule. They would have everyone believe they own everything; including the right to play football.
Let’s say your son is on a team and has a cousin who plays in Salmon. They decide it would be fun to play against each other and you, as a good parent, try to set it up. You call Salmon and they tell you that if it will work in their schedule they’d be happy to do it. You call our “old school” dictators and they tell you no. They might even say they can’t let you because of “insurance reasons.” If you found out (like someone I know did) that you can play without affecting the “old school” insurance and that you could get your own insurance (like Salmon has) and told the “old school” dictators you were going to do it anyway they would lay down the law. Play against Salmon and you’re done. Why? For the simple reason that they wouldn’t be in control.
Salmon made the decision long ago to play against whoever they wanted, and that is why they cannot play any of the teams in the “old school” league. But they get to choose who they play. Why can’t we play in more than one league? I would like my son to play teams from Montana. And Blackfoot. Pocatello. Utah. I hear I’m speaking blasphemy, don’t tell the dictators or they’ll call me a troublemaker or worse - again.
