So tired of hearing "it's not fair" from other parents

[marriard]

Just curious, because the United States is a lot of things, but "the most diverse country in the world" is far from the truth.

As someone who grew up elsewhere and am now a USA citizen I am going to refuse to comment on this thread any more.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Just curious, because the United States is a lot of things, but "the most diverse country in the world" is far from the truth.

Then why can I find any ethnic food I can think of in LA but can't get a decent burrito in Munich/Tokyo/Beijing/London or Paris? I thought I found a good one in Amsterdam but it turned out to be a large......

 

[nanotech14]

Wow, just read this thread. I guess I will just keep my mouth shut. too.

 

[Greenmonsters]

Just curious, because the United States is a lot of things, but "the most diverse country in the world" is far from the truth.

Good thing we're guaranteed freedom of speech too or else it might be "Off with your head, dissident."

 

[BobInMadison]

I wonder if the folks complaining about Christian ministers no longer being able to lead a team in prayer from a public high school, financed by taxpayer money, I wonder how many of them have ever been in a situation where THEY were in the minority religion.

I am sure there are SOME teams where it is no problem. OTOH, for other teams it would be a problem.

Back when I was younger, I had an older friend who was a decorated Vietnam Veteran, USMC two purple hearts. He went to public schools in the days of school prayer, and was a nonbeliever of Jewish descent. The caustic comments by teachers when he would exercise his constitutional right to not participate it school prayer drove his family out of the public schools in Missouri and into a private school.

At the private school he joined the track team, and ran the mile consistently under 4 1/2 minutes, which was a pretty good time in the 1960s. His ability to run fast saved his life in Vietnam, because that meant he could outrun the North Vietnamese Army.

So, this guy was good enough to fight and bleed for our country, but NOT good enough to attend out country's schools.

OTOH, I think of an incredibly inspiring coach, who died a few years ago: Harry Vandergriff. He lived in the same retirement community as my mother, and was in the gym every day in his early 90s, until his death.

Harry Vandergriff was the head coach for the Fayetteville, Arkansas, Bulldog football team. In 1954, FHS was one of two high schools in the old Confederacy that voluntarily integrated right after the Brown case. In 1955, a black kid tried out for the team. Coach Vandergriff made sure the kid was treated exactly the same as all the other kids. FHS was forced to forfeit 3 games because the other teams refused to play against a Negro player, and the state athletic commission ruled that FHS had to either sit out the offending player or else forfeit the games. The team ruled unanimously to forfeit the games. The kids voted unanimously that the team could never eat in a restaurant that excluded that one player on the team, which helped integrate the restaurants in the areal In 1957, the team was undefeated.

IF a TB team decided it was a Christian team, and wanted to have team prayers, I have no problem with it. My DD could try out for the team or NOT try out for the team. She and the family could make the choice.

Or, I have known some Buddhist families in NY who put their kids in Catholic schools, because they liked the Catholic private schools better. That was a choice the families made, and they were quite aware of the mandatory religious education, and the prayer. Some of those kids compete in sports, and are fine with it.

OTOH, it would be a great inconvenience if the local HS SB coach decided the team was Christian. (Of course in Madison, WI, that wouldn't happen). The non-Christian players wouldn't have the choice of playing for a team that didn't exclude them.

And don't try to tell me that no Christian team would ever ostracize a non-Christian. I know there are plenty of the right kind of Christians who could make it work, but there are also plenty of the wrong kind of Christians. It is not the non-Christians who ruined things, it is the self-righteous people who ostracize non-Christians who ruined things.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I'm not sure I've ever heard of a team "declaring" one religion. I attended public and private schools, public didn't have classroom prayer.........private did. I don't remember there being anything one way or the other that upset me to the point of a meltdown. Now sports was another story, even in the public schools the athletes prayed before a game, basically for the safety of both teams..........and that was it. Those teams included whites, blacks, Asians, Middle Easterns, Irish, Italians...............and not one meltdown.

Choosing to be a part of the "prayer" ( or not ) is about the equivalence of buying a school lunch and not eating the pork chop because you're vegetarian. No one is forcing you to each your chop because everyone else at the table is.

 

[Softball scholar]

We would not be here for Title IX, and a lot of this stuff is more about lack of interest and support for a particular sport or rumor (one college cut mens wrestling, and some people railed against Title IX, but when you looked at the sport, it had zero interest among the student body in a survey of incoming athletes in the state). You have to participate as an alumni or parent. Any administrator worth his or her salt does more than tally numbers. Yes, some sports are going to go, and many have had falling numbers for years (swimming in some places for example). It is sad but if the students are not interested, then the sport goes away. You can't gold plate the boys equipment and give none to girls, same as in your own family. Find the right amount and split it in half. That is the only fair way.

If you are impacted about it, speak up during the comment period, or help fund the sport as a booster or at the college level. These things don't happen overnight. Again if there is interest in softball than cutting it and baseball does not meet the law. Active folks stopped baseball from being cut at Towson, if you read the story--it did not meet Title IX to do so. Bad managers are using Title IX as a scapegoat.

It is never OK to not speak up for fear of losing everything, when in fact that goes against the official Federal guidance put out with the law. If that happens, you deal with it. (The school district will have to justify that, then go to the hearings, tell the paper, threaten to vote them out, and run protests. If that does not work, vote them out.) Otherwise, being happy for anything will guarantee crumbs for the girls and women.

You also can't penalize a kid's spot on a team for parents speaking out for equality. What kind of role models are we if we don't act and take on anyone who does crap like that?

OILF-

Title IX has been great for womens sports, and am very thankful my DD can benefit from them.

Here's some facts out how devastating title IX has been to mens non-revenue sports and especially wrestling. Since 1972, there have been 669 collegiant wrestling programs dropped. Note wrestling is the 5th most popular high school sport for boys. But when you compare the ratio of the number of high school programs to college programs wrestling by far has the least number of programs. Last i heard the ratio was 32:1. Softball is closer to 10:1. Also the amount of scholarships per hs athlete is the least.
There have been some wrestling programs 100% funded by contributions by alumni and did not cost the university a dime, but the University was concerned about the proportionality quota and still cut the programs (See Syracuse and California Bakersfield). There have been well over 100s of baseball teams cut, 100s of tennis teams cut, 100s of swimming teams cut.

You say some school ran a survey, and there was no interest. Im sure it was well worded survey. Lets be honest, a very small minority of students show interest in mens or womens non revenue sports. Ill use an example of the local major D1 school in my town. The softball team is lucky to draw 100 fans to its games. They even give away free pizza to promote it. The wrestling dream routinely draws 2,500 to a match.

Maybe some of the 669 wrestling programs dropped becasue of bad management, but most of these were succussful programs. For my example, the Univesity of Nebraska Omaha won 6 out of the last 9 NCAA D2 national championships but there program was cust 2 days after they won the 2011 championship. So this crap does happen over night. I say you're out in left field when you say there is not interest in these programs being cut. I would say generally there is more interest in these programs then the womens programs being funded.

 

[BobInMadison]

Are boys more likely to play organized sports that girls, or do they just like different sports?

For example, at the local LL, they have 4 girls' teams for fall ball in DD #3's age group. Each team is allowed to have 10 players on the field at any given time. A total of 39 players signed up, so one of the teams only fields 9 players. (DD is on that team).

The boys have 10 fall baseball teams in that age group. None are short of players.

OTOH, a lot more girls than boys seem to play volleyball.

I do know a number of girls who are talented athletes who just lost interest in competitive sports, though.

 

[BobInMadison]

I'm not sure I've ever heard of a team "declaring" one religion. I attended public and private schools, public didn't have classroom prayer.........private did. I don't remember there being anything one way or the other that upset me to the point of a meltdown. Now sports was another story, even in the public schools the athletes prayed before a game, basically for the safety of both teams..........and that was it. Those teams included whites, blacks, Asians, Middle Easterns, Irish, Italians...............and not one meltdown.

Choosing to be a part of the "prayer" ( or not ) is about the equivalence of buying a school lunch and not eating the pork chop because you're vegetarian. No one is forcing you to each your chop because everyone else at the table is.

There is a HUGE difference between kids praying and having a public school impose prayer on the kids.

I was an educator for over a decade in the college level. Some private secular, some public. Trust me, kids prayed, esp. right before taking a test. Kids of some faiths would actually write prayers on the test papers, in writing I could not read or understand. I never encouraged it or discouraged it, and I noticed that it seemed to relax some kids.

If some athletes want to pray before a game, nobody will or should stop them.

OTOH, when the school is providing someone to lead a prayer, that causes problems. Maybe others haven't seen it, but, as I said, I knew someone whose family was forced out of public schools because they wouldn't pray in schools. Even one case of that happening is too many times. And, I doubt that was the only case. If it hadn't been an issue, the suit to end school prayer never would've been filed, and never would've made it to the Supreme Court.

Also, realize that no matter what faith you follow, you can easily find yourself in the minority, even by staying in the same neighborhood.

My wife's family lives in an area that was once the largest Jewish neighborhood in the world. At one time, it was a Protestant neighborhood. My wife went to a middle school (Sun Yet-Sen Intermediate School) where Buddhism was the predominant religion, then to a high school (the now defunct Seward Park High School) where the predominant religion was Roman Catholic. (Famous alumni include Jerry Stiller, back when it was still Jewish. All the old people I knew who went there were Jewish.) Now the HS has been split up into a number of different schools, some are predominately Buddhist, others predominately Catholic.

We used to have a Buddhist babysitter in Brooklyn. A block away from that house is the largest Muslim shopping area in New York. A few blocks further down is a large Jewish shopping area. The Scientologists have their NY headquarters in that neighborhood. Lots of Hindus and Roman Catholics as well.

So, if you are going to have a school sponsored prayer, what faith determines the prayer? The majority faith for the team? For the school? The neighborhood? The city? The state? The country? Those could all be different faiths, or at least different denominations.

Bringing in a minister will leave SOMEBODY out, unless it is a small town where 100% of the kids go to the same church, and the kids wouldn't dare NOT pray. In a more diverse city, that is any place with more than one house of worship, you have problems.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

There is a HUGE difference between kids praying and having a public school impose prayer on the kids.

I was an educator for over a decade in the college level. Some private secular, some public. Trust me, kids prayed, esp. right before taking a test. Kids of some faiths would actually write prayers on the test papers, in writing I could not read or understand. I never encouraged it or discouraged it, and I noticed that it seemed to relax some kids.

If some athletes want to pray before a game, nobody will or should stop them.

OTOH, when the school is providing someone to lead a prayer, that causes problems. Maybe others haven't seen it, but, as I said, I knew someone whose family was forced out of public schools because they wouldn't pray in schools. Even one case of that happening is too many times. And, I doubt that was the only case. If it hadn't been an issue, the suit to end school prayer never would've been filed, and never would've made it to the Supreme Court.

Also, realize that no matter what faith you follow, you can easily find yourself in the minority, even by staying in the same neighborhood.

My wife's family lives in an area that was once the largest Jewish neighborhood in the world. At one time, it was a Protestant neighborhood. My wife went to a middle school (Sun Yet-Sen Intermediate School) where Buddhism was the predominant religion, then to a high school (the now defunct Seward Park High School) where the predominant religion was Roman Catholic. (Famous alumni include Jerry Stiller, back when it was still Jewish. All the old people I knew who went there were Jewish.) Now the HS has been split up into a number of different schools, some are predominately Buddhist, others predominately Catholic.

We used to have a Buddhist babysitter in Brooklyn. A block away from that house is the largest Muslim shopping area in New York. A few blocks further down is a large Jewish shopping area. The Scientologists have their NY headquarters in that neighborhood. Lots of Hindus and Roman Catholics as well.

So, if you are going to have a school sponsored prayer, what faith determines the prayer? The majority faith for the team? For the school? The neighborhood? The city? The state? The country? Those could all be different faiths, or at least different denominations.

Bringing in a minister will leave SOMEBODY out, unless it is a small town where 100% of the kids go to the same church, and the kids wouldn't dare NOT pray. In a more diverse city, that is any place with more than one house of worship, you have problems.

Like you said, the SC didn't remove prayer from public schools, it removed gov sponsorship of promoting prayer and worship. Students are allowed to pray on their free time as long as it's not disruptive, they are allowed to form prayer clubs during "non-instructional" schedules as along as ALL religions are allowed to do the same. Schools are actually allowed to study the Bible from a literature standpoint. Schools are allowed to have courses in Comparative Religion, as long as it's balanced.

Now you speak of "one incident" being one too many? I grew up in the second largest city in our state, which has probably 100 different churches and denominations, played ball for almost 20 years ( private teams, company owned teams, middle school, high school, college ). As diverse as religion is.........is about how diverse the members of the team I was playing for............or the teams we played against. Over those 20 years I probably played with 1000's of other athletes, prayers before a game were just a ceremonial as the National Anthem...........nothing more nothing less. I've played and prayed with teams from about 30 states, never in those years seen/heard anyone who had an anxiety attack over a few words. I believe anyone so mentally weak that a few words frightens them better not step outside. They're going to hear worse things than prayer.

The prayers were conducted by either the coach or a player. Short and sweet, "God protect us......protect the other team......safe trip home". "God" was never implied to be solely Christian, "God" can take on many forms and names across most religions. I had an Asian friend who played HS baseball, when he would lead the prayer he would speak in his native language, I had no clue what he was saying, but we all closed our eyes and mouths and RESPECTED his spiritual conversation.