• Have something to say? Register Now! and be posting in minutes!

Great Article On Why High School Sports Should Be Allowed To Continue

Wild Turkey

Sarcasm: Just one of my many services.
25,071
4,869
293
Joined
May 21, 2013
Hoopla Cash
$ 14,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
‘Can’t Breathe’ Is Making It Impossible For Kids To Live

Our fixation on death comes with a heavy price tag. It’s costing us our life. For young people, it’s costing them their future.

“I Can’t Breathe” is morphing into “They Can’t Live.”

The California Interscholastic Federation announced on Monday it will delay its high school fall sports season until January. Other states will surely follow the lead of The Golden State. On the surface, given the alleged surging Coronavirus positive tests, the decision is appropriate and responsible.

But is it?

The consequence of pervasive secular values is the prioritization of death over life. As a nation, we’ve seemingly decided the avoidance of death is more important than the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

For people who do not believe in the afterlife, fear of death wields total control over decision-making. America’s founders, flawed as they were, believed they answered to a Higher Power and in the concept of heaven and hell. They prioritized life over death because their religious faith softened the consequence of death on this earth.

Collectively we no longer believe that. We have a death obsession. There is no freedom we will not sacrifice in pursuit of avoiding death. A nation that fought a revolutionary war over taxation without representation and an even bloodier civil war over the abolishment of slavery has spent four months afraid to breathe and cowering at home fearful of a virus with a 99 percent recovery rate.

That is not written to suggest we take a cavalier approach to COVID-19. It’s written to make us question our obsession with death.

For nearly two months, we have put more time, energy and focus on the expired lives of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks than we have the future of our youth. Risking your health protesting and advocating for George Floyd places you on the right side of a history that will be written by the self-appointed.

The expansion of American freedom, from the Civil War to Civil Rights, had traditionally been won by the men and women concerned with being on the right side of God.

We now wet our fingers, hold them in the air and move at the whim of social media trends. We serve death, not life. We value the old more than the young, the people nearest death over the ones just starting their journey. We used to sacrifice our lives to leave the next generation a better world. We’ve lost that resolve.

Fear-based decision-making is destroying the future of our youth. We can’t keep kids locked in homes, socially distanced indefinitely. The delay and potential cancellation of fall sports will have a devastating impact on young people.

The year 2020 is a nationwide Hurricane Katrina, and the poor will once again pay a disproportionate price for the politically-driven decisions of elites.

In 1984, at age 17, I lived with my dad in a 400-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment on the eastside of Indianapolis. We were poor. Delinquent taxes forced the closure of my dad’s tavern, Jimmy’s J-Bar-J. My dad earned $300 a week plus tips working as a bartender for a friend.

I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like now had a global health crisis wiped out my senior year of high school, had I been trapped inside that tiny apartment for months with my dad.

I don’t mean to diminish the life of George Floyd or the handful of other victims of criminal police misconduct, but what kind of sick, narcissistic country hyper-focuses on justice for a dead man when the lives of millions of kids are being destroyed?

Over the weekend, I chatted with a couple of high school football coaches in my hometown, Warren Central’s Jayson West and Ben Davis’ Jason Simmons. I played at Warren Central. We won the Big School state championship in 1984, and I earned a football scholarship to Ball State University. The scholarship changed my life.

Warren Central is a nationally-ranked powerhouse. We routinely send a dozen or so players a year off to play college football at some level. The same is true for Ben Davis. Both programs are filled with poor black kids from single-parent homes. The schools provide free breakfast and lunch to all of their students.

Canceling and/or delaying school and sports means a bit more to kids attending Warren Central and Ben Davis.

“I’m worried about video-game dependency,” West told me. “That’s their platform. That’s their way of socially engaging. They’re not engaging, they’re not moving around. Our kids don’t have gym memberships or gyms in their homes or garages.”

Indianapolis schools shut down in March like the rest of the country. Two weeks ago, the Indiana High School Athletic Association approved the resumption of organized workouts. There has been no concrete decision on when fall sports will start.

“It’s been great getting back with our kids,” Simmons said. “We’ve had kids literally working out at home lifting vacuum cleaners and buckets of water. But for our kids, it’s bigger than football. If we don’t reopen the schools, the education gap is only going to grow. The kids with both parents and money will survive this. Our kids have to have this opportunity.”

The unintended consequence of fear is death, the death of opportunity.

We’re killing the future of kids with our cultural obsession with death. Violently, irrationally and emotionally avenging the deaths of George Floyd and a few other ex-felons who died arguing with or resisting police will have long-lasting repercussions.

Numerous college and high school coaches have told me that the top priority in recruiting is the family background of a prospect. “Fit” is a buzzword for “nuclear family.”

Coaches have long feared athletes who are difficult to control. Social media and the haphazard racial justice sought via social media have exacerbated that fear. Kids from single-parent homes require more oversight. They’re less likely to easily conform.

The can’t-miss, 4- and 5-star prospects will be fine. But the opportunities for the marginal recruit from a tough background are shrinking rapidly. We don’t “fit” the profile.

I wouldn’t recruit Jason Whitlock in this era. If I had a Twitter feed at age 20, all of my coaches would’ve been fired.

Colin Kaepernick and all of his disciples have elevated their brands and the reputations of dead heroes George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks.

When are we going to resume our fight for the living? To do that, we must first conquer our fear of death and abandon our intense focus on the dead.

They can’t live if we don’t allow them to breathe… life.
 

Thiefery

Well-Known Member
2,134
380
83
Joined
Mar 3, 2020
Location
VA
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Wait "I can't breathe" has nothing to do with the Rona.. Hate when people/writers use that when it comes to Covid. I'm all for schools in general to resume classes in the fall...on campus. I'm happy that Texas went ahead and gave a greenlight for the fall season albeit a few weeks delay for it's biggest divisions 5A, 6A.

I currently live in VA and they canceled fall sports and it seems like every school district is going with virtual learning this fall, including mine. Feel for the seniors who will miss their last season on the field, in football, soccer, and even cross country
 

ThereIsNoPlace

The New Asshole
5,635
1,984
173
Joined
Dec 1, 2018
Location
Looking over your crib
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Very short sighted thoughts. The tensions around race are not about the recent deaths of black citizens, the movement is about decades of unfair treatment. Black voices young & old have been screaming for decades and nobody listened, now they're getting heard because that's what they've learned will work.( look at the 60's civil rights movement)


It's also short sighted thinking regarding opening school this Fall. If progress towards a vaccine is progressing as well as reported, kids may be back to normal operations in 2021. I think trading less than a year of education(which they CAN catch up on) is a good trade for thousands of American lives.

As for sports, yes, it's disappointing but we'll survive. Video game addiction is real, though.
 

cwalke3408

Well-Known Member
3,976
1,111
173
Joined
Jul 7, 2013
Location
ATL
Hoopla Cash
$ 8.57
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
“We destroying the lives of millions of kids by teaching them to live in fear”

Also our kids
upload_2020-7-22_9-26-20.jpeg
 

PEOPLESCHICKEN

Dysfunctional Member
16,597
2,282
173
Joined
May 3, 2017
Location
Camino Espinoza
Hoopla Cash
$ 1.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
‘Can’t Breathe’ Is Making It Impossible For Kids To Live

Our fixation on death comes with a heavy price tag. It’s costing us our life. For young people, it’s costing them their future.

“I Can’t Breathe” is morphing into “They Can’t Live.”

The California Interscholastic Federation announced on Monday it will delay its high school fall sports season until January. Other states will surely follow the lead of The Golden State. On the surface, given the alleged surging Coronavirus positive tests, the decision is appropriate and responsible.

But is it?

The consequence of pervasive secular values is the prioritization of death over life. As a nation, we’ve seemingly decided the avoidance of death is more important than the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

For people who do not believe in the afterlife, fear of death wields total control over decision-making. America’s founders, flawed as they were, believed they answered to a Higher Power and in the concept of heaven and hell. They prioritized life over death because their religious faith softened the consequence of death on this earth.

Collectively we no longer believe that. We have a death obsession. There is no freedom we will not sacrifice in pursuit of avoiding death. A nation that fought a revolutionary war over taxation without representation and an even bloodier civil war over the abolishment of slavery has spent four months afraid to breathe and cowering at home fearful of a virus with a 99 percent recovery rate.

That is not written to suggest we take a cavalier approach to COVID-19. It’s written to make us question our obsession with death.

For nearly two months, we have put more time, energy and focus on the expired lives of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks than we have the future of our youth. Risking your health protesting and advocating for George Floyd places you on the right side of a history that will be written by the self-appointed.

The expansion of American freedom, from the Civil War to Civil Rights, had traditionally been won by the men and women concerned with being on the right side of God.

We now wet our fingers, hold them in the air and move at the whim of social media trends. We serve death, not life. We value the old more than the young, the people nearest death over the ones just starting their journey. We used to sacrifice our lives to leave the next generation a better world. We’ve lost that resolve.

Fear-based decision-making is destroying the future of our youth. We can’t keep kids locked in homes, socially distanced indefinitely. The delay and potential cancellation of fall sports will have a devastating impact on young people.

The year 2020 is a nationwide Hurricane Katrina, and the poor will once again pay a disproportionate price for the politically-driven decisions of elites.

In 1984, at age 17, I lived with my dad in a 400-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment on the eastside of Indianapolis. We were poor. Delinquent taxes forced the closure of my dad’s tavern, Jimmy’s J-Bar-J. My dad earned $300 a week plus tips working as a bartender for a friend.

I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like now had a global health crisis wiped out my senior year of high school, had I been trapped inside that tiny apartment for months with my dad.

I don’t mean to diminish the life of George Floyd or the handful of other victims of criminal police misconduct, but what kind of sick, narcissistic country hyper-focuses on justice for a dead man when the lives of millions of kids are being destroyed?

Over the weekend, I chatted with a couple of high school football coaches in my hometown, Warren Central’s Jayson West and Ben Davis’ Jason Simmons. I played at Warren Central. We won the Big School state championship in 1984, and I earned a football scholarship to Ball State University. The scholarship changed my life.

Warren Central is a nationally-ranked powerhouse. We routinely send a dozen or so players a year off to play college football at some level. The same is true for Ben Davis. Both programs are filled with poor black kids from single-parent homes. The schools provide free breakfast and lunch to all of their students.

Canceling and/or delaying school and sports means a bit more to kids attending Warren Central and Ben Davis.

“I’m worried about video-game dependency,” West told me. “That’s their platform. That’s their way of socially engaging. They’re not engaging, they’re not moving around. Our kids don’t have gym memberships or gyms in their homes or garages.”

Indianapolis schools shut down in March like the rest of the country. Two weeks ago, the Indiana High School Athletic Association approved the resumption of organized workouts. There has been no concrete decision on when fall sports will start.

“It’s been great getting back with our kids,” Simmons said. “We’ve had kids literally working out at home lifting vacuum cleaners and buckets of water. But for our kids, it’s bigger than football. If we don’t reopen the schools, the education gap is only going to grow. The kids with both parents and money will survive this. Our kids have to have this opportunity.”

The unintended consequence of fear is death, the death of opportunity.

We’re killing the future of kids with our cultural obsession with death. Violently, irrationally and emotionally avenging the deaths of George Floyd and a few other ex-felons who died arguing with or resisting police will have long-lasting repercussions.

Numerous college and high school coaches have told me that the top priority in recruiting is the family background of a prospect. “Fit” is a buzzword for “nuclear family.”

Coaches have long feared athletes who are difficult to control. Social media and the haphazard racial justice sought via social media have exacerbated that fear. Kids from single-parent homes require more oversight. They’re less likely to easily conform.

The can’t-miss, 4- and 5-star prospects will be fine. But the opportunities for the marginal recruit from a tough background are shrinking rapidly. We don’t “fit” the profile.

I wouldn’t recruit Jason Whitlock in this era. If I had a Twitter feed at age 20, all of my coaches would’ve been fired.

Colin Kaepernick and all of his disciples have elevated their brands and the reputations of dead heroes George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks.

When are we going to resume our fight for the living? To do that, we must first conquer our fear of death and abandon our intense focus on the dead.

They can’t live if we don’t allow them to breathe… life.
I don't always agree with Jason Whitlock, but I think this article has some good points. Before you condemn it or call it short-sighted try and look at it with a larger lens that isn't focused simply on the last few months. Our kids are addicted to games, devices, and social media. They are either losing or do not develop the soft skills that prepare them for adulthood. They do not possess grit or resiliency.
 

Wild Turkey

Sarcasm: Just one of my many services.
25,071
4,869
293
Joined
May 21, 2013
Hoopla Cash
$ 14,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
I don't always agree with Jason Whitlock, but I think this article has some good points. Before you condemn it or call it short-sighted try and look at it with a larger lens that isn't focused simply on the last few months. Our kids are addicted to games, devices, and social media. They are either losing or do not develop the soft skills that prepare them for adulthood. They do not possess grit or resiliency.
The whole point of the article is that when you take away sports from some of these kids it means they might not come back and it very well might be the only positive in their life. We won't be able to calculate how many throw away their future because their season was canceled and they stopped caring and got into things they shouldn't.
 

Deep Creek

Well-Known Member
14,950
3,641
293
Joined
Aug 26, 2015
Hoopla Cash
$ 200.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Wait "I can't breathe" has nothing to do with the Rona.. Hate when people/writers use that when it comes to Covid. I'm all for schools in general to resume classes in the fall...on campus. I'm happy that Texas went ahead and gave a greenlight for the fall season albeit a few weeks delay for it's biggest divisions 5A, 6A.

I currently live in VA and they canceled fall sports and it seems like every school district is going with virtual learning this fall, including mine. Feel for the seniors who will miss their last season on the field, in football, soccer, and even cross country
The UIL's reasoning has huge holes in it. I admire their recognition of the different case levels in certain areas. But, someone(s) don't understand consistency.

The reasoning the delay in 5A-6A was because the metropolitan areas are having the most problems and that is where the larger schools are located. However, the DFW area has 25+ 4A and 3A schools that will start four weeks earlier. Argyle (4A) is about 6-8 miles from Flower Mound Marcus and Denton Ryan. Hell, Kennedale (4A) is probably within 10 miles of every Arlington and Mansfield school!
 

Thiefery

Well-Known Member
2,134
380
83
Joined
Mar 3, 2020
Location
VA
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
The whole point of the article is that when you take away sports from some of these kids it means they might not come back and it very well might be the only positive in their life. We won't be able to calculate how many throw away their future because their season was canceled and they stopped caring and got into things they shouldn't.
lol now he cares about the ones who don't make it back.. fuck that fat fuck
 

Deep Creek

Well-Known Member
14,950
3,641
293
Joined
Aug 26, 2015
Hoopla Cash
$ 200.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
I don't always agree with Jason Whitlock, but I think this article has some good points. Before you condemn it or call it short-sighted try and look at it with a larger lens that isn't focused simply on the last few months. Our kids are addicted to games, devices, and social media. They are either losing or do not develop the soft skills that prepare them for adulthood. They do not possess grit or resiliency.
Agree 100% We call it "ganas" on the border but it includes a deep desire as well as a "sticktoitiveness".
 

Darrell Green Fan

The Voice of Reason
23,843
6,452
533
Joined
Sep 2, 2014
Location
Mount Airy MD
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Wait "I can't breathe" has nothing to do with the Rona.

As soon as I read that I knew the writer was full of shit. It was confirmed later when I was lectured that because I do not believe in the after life apparently I care too much about dying. Fuck that writer.
 

wazzu31

Never go full Husky
23,729
6,639
533
Joined
Apr 26, 2013
Location
Sumner
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Dead heroes?
 

GNG

What Me Worry?
94,596
16,740
1,033
Joined
Jun 25, 2014
Location
Wisconsin
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
It was confirmed later when I was lectured that because I do not believe in the after life apparently I care too much about dying.
You shouldn't care if you lack faith.
 

GNG

What Me Worry?
94,596
16,740
1,033
Joined
Jun 25, 2014
Location
Wisconsin
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
The whole point of the article is that when you take away sports from some of these kids it means they might not come back and it very well might be the only positive in their life. We won't be able to calculate how many throw away their future because their season was canceled and they stopped caring and got into things they shouldn't.
In this case, the cure is worse than the disease.
 

Darrell Green Fan

The Voice of Reason
23,843
6,452
533
Joined
Sep 2, 2014
Location
Mount Airy MD
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
You shouldn't care if you lack faith.
No since I don't believe in the afterlife, I think that's a bunch of nonsense, perhaps I value life more than people who do believe in the afterlife. Even if that's not so clearly I would never value life less than those who believe in the afterlife
 

Darrell Green Fan

The Voice of Reason
23,843
6,452
533
Joined
Sep 2, 2014
Location
Mount Airy MD
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Most atheists are okay with abortion so I doubt you value life.

You're all over the map, as usual. Stay on point. I value life as much or more than you do because I believe we only have one life to live and it should be treated with great respect
 
Last edited:

GNG

What Me Worry?
94,596
16,740
1,033
Joined
Jun 25, 2014
Location
Wisconsin
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
You're all over the map, as usual. Stay on point. I value life as much or more than you do because I believe we only have one life to live and it should be treated with great respect
I have no respect for folks that lack faith.
 
Top