Fox 2 News HeadlinesPlymouth High School’s (Mich.) baseball team parents only wanted two things for this upcoming season (aside from a winning season): a new scoreboard and a comfortable set of raised bleachers to watch games from. And they got both of those things by doing what any public high school sports team does when they want nice things: they raised the money themselves. Not only that, the parents did all the construction. Everything was ready to go in time for the new season — until some helicopter parent(s) swooped in and single-handedly took it all away.
A complaint was filed with the U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of the girl’s softball team, claiming the disparity between the softball and baseball fields was so great that it violated a law stating sports facilities for boys and girls must be equal (in this case: literally an “even playing field”). The civil rights folks agreed, and issued a citation to the school, which forced them to remove the bleachers until a solution could be found.
Well, ain’t that some Grade-A Commie bullshit right there.
Personal story time: Back when I was in high school, we had a shitty baseball/football field (literally, the baseball outfield doubled as a practice field for the football team). Once the football team was done tearing up the grass for an entire fall, the baseball coach spent the winter re-sodding the whole thing, maintaining it, and having it ready for the spring. The baseball team couldn’t even play its games there because it was only good enough for practice (even that is being generous). And forget the softball team. They played on Parks Department fields. They didn’t even have their own field to practice on.
It wasn’t a matter of Haves vs. Have-nots. It was one Have-Nothing having just a little bit more than the other Have-Nothing. And nobody complained — except about how shitty everything was. To be perfectly honest, I should just tell the parents of the Plymouth softball team to shutup and be grateful they even have their own field.
Anyway, my senior year, the baseball coach decided he wanted to host games at the school for the first time in, like, forever. He spent the entire winter again maintaining the field, while also raising money for new bleachers, a nice (albeit temporary) outfield fence, etc. When it was finished, it was actually quite an accomplishment. I actually went to home baseball games. Other people went too (impressive, considering the team sucked). And you know who complained? NOBODY. Why? Because everybody was like “Holy shit! He did that all on his own, and that’s damn impressive!”
Which brings us back to this fiasco in Plymouth. The parents did this on their own time, and on their own dime. To my knowledge, they didn’t get any assistance from the school district (other than what probably amounted to a simple “OK” from some district athletic director). It’d be one thing if the school district, or the state, allocated money for fancy new baseball amenities, while leaving the softball team stuck with a glorified sandlot. But that’s not the case here.
If you want it, build it. If you don’t want to build it (or can’t), then don’t complain when the other team has its shit together. What makes this even more laughable is that all the complaining actually landed the softball team its own new scoreboard. Yet the bleachers, which, again, were bought and built by some parents who gave a little bit more of a shit than some other parents, will remain in storage.
[Barstool]
