GUEST OPINION
By: Ari Gabinet
As the one voice on the school board who has appeared to voice any reservations at all about HIKE’s proposal to help fund the startup of a football program, I feel it necessary to make sure my views are understood. Even at the cost of disagreements around our dinner table, I am a supporter of football at the high school. I see the potential benefits to many, many kids, and to my mind, a program that works in so many other districts can’t be bad. There are many pragmatic arguments that can be made against football money and fields to start with, potential injuries for another most of which can be overcome with sufficient will or simple objective analysis. Just look at the expense, logistical problems, and culture of violence that are involved in hockey (a sport I lettered in back in high school). I really don’t believe, however, that those pragmatic concerns are at the center of the debate over football in Hopewell, and therefore I don’t see HIKE’s proposal which addresses only those pragmatic concerns as settling the issue of the feasibility of football.
What I continue to be concerned about is understanding why the voting majority rejected the football second question a year ago. This is the question that I posed to Mark Clements at the last school board meeting, and the one that I asked him to ponder, and address, as the HIKE proposal moves forward.
I suspect that the opposition to football is really cultural, not financial or safety-based. Matt Bartlett, in his remarks to the board, argued that football is a democratic and inclusive game because many of the positions don’t require high levels of agility or specified skills. I’m afraid that it’s just that perception, that football glorifies brute strength, that makes some people wary of it. I have sensed in the opposition to football a fear that the program will glorify aggression, brutality, anti-intellectualism and sexism (some people feel that cheerleading perpetuates sexist role models) to the high school. I wonder if some of these cultural concerns aren’t the real root of the argument some have advanced that we don’t have enough spending on academics and arts to allow us to spend lavishly on a football program. There are people out there who just don’t like what they think football represents.
Personally, I don’t share these fears or attitudes. I think that as "violent" as it is, and as much strength and determination as are required to play it, football is a great sport for all the reasons that the HIKE parents and children say it is. It requires strength, speed, determination, grace, teamwork and heart to play. Those things do not necessarily breed a bad culture it is the attitude and behavior of the kids and parents that creates the culture, not the sport. We had a football program in my high school, but it was the hockey players, not the football players, who were the kings of the social pecking order (well, leaving out second string defensemen like me), and it was the hockey fans, not the football fans, who fought their rivals in the stands and the parking lots.
The culture of a Hopewell football program will depend on the character and behavior of the players, coaches, and parents. For that reason, the football "sit in" at the board meeting last month was both a good and bad thing. It was good, because kids like Matt Bartlett are great ambassadors for the sport. He was honest, ingenuous, and sincere. If the football players continue to be the same nice kids that they are now, we have nothing to fear. It was bad, because the occupation of the board room, coupled with an "offer you can’t refuse" made in a public forum was, plain and simple, a form of intimidation that instinctively made me want to resist. And that’s a form of conduct that opponents of football see as the type of "football culture" they fear.
So where does that leave me on the HIKE proposal? It’s a great idea. It represents admirable commitment and proactive thinking. I think it’s a great way to introduce the sport and let the kids and the community see how it develops, rather than condemning it sight unseen. "Try it, you’ll like it."
I am concerned about the legalities, and I am concerned that three years from now, we will have to ask the same questions we asked last year what are we willing to cut from our programs to fit football into our budget, and if we can’t fit it, will the voters support it on a second question? More than that, though, I am concerned that it doesn’t address the real problem the true source of community resistance. I am personally a supporter, but I represent a community, whose attitudes I have to try to understand. To the parents in HIKE, I repeat what I said to Mark Clements at the board meeting if you want people to support football, you have to get out and convince the 9,000 people who didn’t vote last time that football is not evil and scary, that the kids will still be good kids, that the parents aren’t trying to force something on the community that it has resisted for 70 years. Temporary solutions to the funding and field problems and predictions of community spirit built around weekly games aren’t worth much if the program is built over the will of the community.
I have been quoted as asking whether a vocal minority of football fans should be able to start a football program by providing the seed funding. What I wasn’t quoted as asking, however, is whether a vocal minority of football opponents should be able to prevent the creation of a program that would benefit so many kids. I ask both questions, and in the end I will have to vote based on what I believe the right answer is. I encourage all residents who care about the issue to search honestly for the true source of their feelings, and to share them in the spirit of honest debate.