The following post to the web site newslanc.com (Motto: “Break free from the monopoly press!”) came in reaction to my feature last week on McCaskey High School athletics…
An implication of the Sept. 21st Sunday News article “McCaskey’s Challenge” was that McCaskey High School’s teams are performing so poorly because the players are subject to all of the disadvantages and problems of inner city youths. Football coach Scott Feldman is quoted: “It’s hard to be good at [football], and we just don’t have a lot of kids right now who are willing to do it. I don’t think we’ll have football at McCaskey in another couple years if we don’t change some things.”
Long time volunteer basketball coach Steve Powell is quoted as saying “.. you’re not gonna escape it, this is a school district with basically minority young people. We have to make them understand what it’s like to be a part of something. A lot of suburban kids already have that. Most of our kids don’t. People don’t want to hear it, but it’s reality.” To test whether the problem was inner city kids, NewsLanc investigated the 2007 win / loss records of the other inner city high school football teams in our region. To wit:
Coatesville High School football 5-5 (5 wins, 5 losses)
Downingtown East football 8-3 (8 wins, 3 losses)
Downingtown West football 10-2 (10 wins, 2 losses)
Harrisburg High School football: 13-2 (13 wins, 2 losses)
Reading High School football 3-7 (3 wins, 7 losses)
York High (William Penn) 10-2 (10 wins, 2 losses)
The above results seem to be at variance to the excuses being proffered for McCaskey’s poor performance in football and possibly other sports….
Quite an investigation, fellas. Exhaustive.
Go ahead and take a deep breath for a moment, while I tidy up some odds and ends:
The Downingtown schools are about as inner city as Hempfield or Conestoga Valley. Their football records are every bit as relevant to this discussion as Dartmouth’s or the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s.
High school sports (obviously) being extremely cyclical in nature, drawing grand conclusions from one season is (obviously) beyond ridiculous.
The piece didn’t say McCaskey teams are “performing so poorly because…,” of anything. It didn’t even say McCaskey teams are performing poorly. It wasn’t about, and nothing in it is refutable by, football won-loss records.
Leaving aside all of the above….
1. Coatesville (5-5). So you’re saying a 5-5 record is indicative of… what? Are you aware that 5-5 is not real sparkling? McCaskey won seven games and made the district playoffs way back in the dark reaches of… 2006. Never mind. McCaskey has indeed lost to Coatesville five straight times. One of those games was 34-29. Another was 36-33 and McCaskey was without its best player (injured) and several other starters. Before that, McCaskey beat Coatesville five straight times (1999-2003), including 46-6, 42-14, 28-0, and once when Coatesville was ranked fifth in the state.
2. Harrisburg (13-2). Harrisburg High School is different from McCaskey demographically in ways that tend to impact football. That’s actually an understatement. Also, it is supported financially and administratively by the city of Harrisburg, which allows it to employ a coach who has NFL and major-college experience and pay him a six-figure salary to do nothing but coach football.
3. Reading (3-7). Three and seven? This might be the place to mention that this hard-hitting expose was headlined, and I swear I’m not making this up, “Other inner city football teams kick butt.” “Other” meaning “other than McCaskey”. Which went 3-7 last year. And beat Reading. As it usually does. Hello?
4. York (10-2). York had its best football team in my memory in 2007, and I’ve been covering high school sports in this region for 26 years. During Feldman’s 11 seasons, McCaskey has played York every year and won more than it lost.
So to summarize, the only real problems with this investigation are, 1. It wasn’t an investigation; 2. It didn’t come close to revealing anything worth knowing about McCaskey sports or any other subject in the universe; and, 3. I take that back; it may have (unintentionally) revealed a few things about newslanc.com.
Seriously, guys: update your resumes. Take a drive, just to feel the wind in your hair. Reacquaint yourself with friends and family. Do a puzzle. (Sudokus are fun.) Take some time for Y-O-U. Lord knows you’ve earned it.
