Rams deserve respect and support

Letter to the editor

To the editor:
   The Hightstown High School Rams football team will play its first game of the season on Saturday against Hamilton West at 11 a.m. in Hamilton. Our first home game will be against West Windsor South on Sept. 21 at 7 p.m.
   Football is a complex sport. Of the players, it requires great physical strength, superb health, emotional courage, discipline, more than average intelligence, agility, and the resilience to overcome adversity and bad luck. That’s just to learn how to play the game. It’s a game that teaches commitment to hard work, respect for elders, good manners, the embracement of diversity, devotion to duty and the need to balance play with scholarship.
   To field a successful team, it takes more than a great coaching staff (which we have). It takes more than great players (which we have). A successful team requires the unqualified support of the community in which it lives, trains and plays.
   If the school or the parents are half-hearted in their support of their scholar-athletes, all the teams suffer. If the weight room at the school lacks supervision, or the right equipment, the players cannot build the strength they need in order to maintain their health. If the school does not budget adequately for equipment and trainers, then injury will surely result. If the parents do not take their children to practice, the team loses their participation. If the parents do not care whether or not their children play, it becomes that much more difficult for them to maintain consistency of effort over time. If the public does not show up at games, then the administration will surely say that the program is not worthwhile.
   I have watched our new coaches and their players very closely this summer. I have watched them train in the heat and rain, for much longer hours than they originally thought were required. I have seen them practice the same play over and over until they got it right. I have seen them be hit hard and fall, only to get up and try again. I have not heard one word of complaint from the players. Not one word. Yes, they said they were bone tired. Their muscles hurt, and their skin was bruised. A few have had more serious injuries that will take them out of the game for a few weeks. But I have not heard a single word of complaint that it was too tough, or too hard, or too painful. Yet I can tell you from personal experience that their physical and mental training has been more thorough, more intensive, more professional than anything I received during three years in the Army.
   Whatever the outcome of this season, win, lose or draw, these young men of Hightstown, East Windsor and Roosevelt who play football for Hightstown High School have earned my respect. They deserve your respect, and your support, as well.
Thomas W. Perrin
East Windsor