Friday Nights Not the Same (Violence at Football HS Games)

[RedEarth]

Friday Nights Not the Same
Violence at Football Games Imperils a Rite of Youth

By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 10, 2005; Page B01

At Mount Vernon High School in suburban New York, the Knights played their homecoming game amid silence, the contest decided in an empty stadium on a Friday morning last month because a hometown man had been shot dead in the city of the team's rival the week before.

At Goldsboro High School in North Carolina last year, the Cougars played their homecoming game to an audience of parents only. Rumors had been flying that kids were planning to fight.



Police investigate a shooting at Annapolis High last month. The school's Friday night football games have since been rescheduled. (By Jonathan Ernst For The Washington Post)


This week, after the accidental shooting of a 17-year-old girl at an Oct. 28 game, Annapolis High School has moved its traditional Friday night homecoming game to this afternoon. At tomorrow's homecoming parade, marchers will reach the City Dock and then just go home. The game will have already been played.

The cherished ritual of Friday night high school football -- hot chocolate, marching bands and blankets under the lights -- has long been as sure a sign of fall as the changing of the leaves. But this season, a series of shootings and stabbings during and after the games threatens to upend the tradition here and across the country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902303.html?sub=AR

[Bill McBlueState]

1. maybe there's a bright side

If this shifts the focus of youth to *actually learning a few things* and de-emphasizes organized athletics and all the corruption that goes with it, maybe there's a bright side to it.

Still, the violence is saddening.

[mduffy31]

6. Taking athletics away doesn't help

I have seen studies that say that the are a positive to have students participate in organized sports.

[Bill McBlueState]

7. agreed

But the money spent on the more outlandish incarnations of high school athletics (think big-school football in Texas) could be spent elsewhere while still maintaining reasonable and effective athletic programs.

[lowreed]

2. Maby they'll re-start band and orchestra programs

Although there can be lots of sax and violins at the concerts :)

[underpants]

3. Boo

welcome to DU :hi: but BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Maybe

Funny very funny but BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[newyawker99]

8. Hi lowreed!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[underpants]

4. Backin my day (hitches pants up) the violence was ON the field

(snorts) (spits)

[billbuckhead]

5. These deaths need to be laid at the feet of USA's gun culture

Slow motion terrorism from the gun nuts and their offspring.