HS football team can't find opponents because they're too good
One of the most common recurring themes in any movie about youth sports is the trope of the scrappy ragtag bunch of misfits playing against the bullies from the big school in the climactic feel-good final scene and reaching deep into their hearts to find the strength within themselves as they win the big game in the end.
In real life, the scrappy bunch of misfits loses badly to a team that’s just better than they are. Kids, overpowered by men in a boy’s game, get demoralized and even seriously injured, especially in football, where the violence of the game runs square into the laws of physics with devastating results.
Which is why St. Frances Academy, a Catholic high school in Baltimore, can’t find enough opponents to fill out its schedule in 2018, according to The Baltimore Sun.
St. Frances finished the 2017 season 13-0, ranked fourth in the entire country by USA Today. It’s to college football what a STEM charter school is to MIT and Cal Tech, developing a specialized skill in gifted young students to prepare them for college.
And three of its rivals — McDonogh, Archbishop Spalding and Gilman — are leaning toward pulling out of their games against St. Frances rather than risk the well-being of their students.
“They’re just a way better team,” McDonogh coach Dom Damico said after his team got brutalized last October by St. Frances. “They’re bigger, stronger, faster, better. They’re like a college football team. It’s like a college team versus a high school team. We’re not deep enough or strong enough to play them. That’s just a different breed of football.”
“They’re playing at the national level trying to win a national championship. We’re trying to make the playoffs in the A Conference. It’s a different approach, but they’re a great team.”
And truth be told, it’s hard to argue with him. To evaluate a decision like that is to insert a heavy element of “if it were my kid” into it, and parents don’t want to see their kids get roughed up beyond the normal risks of a sport like football.
Another program, Calvert Hall, joined the cavalcade of schools pulling out of games with St. Frances.
“Our decision wasn’t made lightly, but given the size of the athletic disparity, we believe this is the best for our players, our program and our school,” Calvert Hall director of communications and marketing Danielle Hladky said in a statement.
And former Calvert Hall boys soccer coach Andy Moore addressed the “if it were my kid” issue head-on.
“I have to say as a parent, I’m in full support of Calvert Hall’s decision,” he said. “For me, first and foremost, playing in a competitive environment where there’s a level playing field is important and I think that has gotten skewed in the A Conference the last couple years. And while you want to have good, competitive balance in all sports, it’s particularly important in football because then you’re talking about safety issues.”
“I think there’s a size and speed difference in (St. Frances) that has created an imbalanced situation. Honestly, I think the Calvert Hall game was the most competitive (against St. Frances) in the regular season and it was still clear they were not two teams that had athletes playing at the same level. As a parent, it’s scary to see your son out there vulnerable as a punter when they are running at him.”
Dom Cottone, whose son Chris is the kicker for Calvert Hall, echoed Moore’s sentiments.
“All I could see is when St. Frances came, they were physically more mature,” Cottone said. “You can tell a man’s a man and boy’s a boy and there was a disparity involved. I gulped because I’m all of 5-7 and my kid is 5-10 and it was like, ‘Gosh, I wouldn’t want to be out there against these guys.’ They looked like cut Division I players. I support the administration’s decision. It only highlighted safety issues and I’ll always be on the side of player safety.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Curtis Turner, the principal at St. Frances, lamented the situation his school is now in simply because they’re too good; they’re scrambling to find games on short notice, after all.
“If we knew this in January, my coaches are, ‘Yeah, we could put together an independent schedule,’” Turner said. “That’s never been part of the rules and then to have this happen in May, our coaches are scrambling to get games. It just seems like there are certain rules that can be bent except when it comes to us and now that we’re good, everybody’s like, ‘Why don’t you do this?’ Well, we asked this like six years ago when we were struggling.”
St. Frances coach Biff Poggi has raised the hackles of a lot of schools around Baltimore.
Poggi is a hedge-fund manager who has bankrolled the St. Frances football program with $60,000 in seed money.
He also funds 40 scholarships each year and even pays for housing for some out-of-town students.
In other words, he’s assembling a college football program — or even a semi-pro team — at the high school level, which creates a huge disparity in talent.
Turner responded to criticism that his school’s approach to football violates the spirit of the high school game and imposes collegiate or even professional values.
“With the exception of our social-economic demographic, we resemble any other private school in Baltimore,” he said. “But it is that difference that is driving the current dynamic in the league.”
“Reading the recent statement from Mount Saint Joseph High School and Calvert Hall College High School about our athletic league in general and Saint Frances Academy in particular has exposed a rift in the Baltimore community that many of us know exists, but few of us are willing to address. My community was angered and hurt by the insinuation that we don’t share the same values as other members. This is particularly harmful coming from other Catholic schools.”
The statement from Mount Saint Joseph, penned by coach Rich Holzer and athletic director Kraig Loovis, singled out the many transfer students and cited the same safety concerns the Calvert Hall parents brought up.
The statement did not mince words.
“After consultation with our board of directors, our administration, our athletic director and our head coach, we have informed the league and St. Frances Academy that we will not play football this year. With considerable research and much reflection, we no longer seem to share the same vision of the league in educating young people with a goal to foster a safe and healthy competitive environment (Article Two, Mission Statement- MIAA Constitution). We feel the spirit of the league Constitution, which discourages transfers for athletic purposes, is what we uphold as incongruent with other member schools,” the statement read.
Therein lies the problem with being a big fish in a small pond; it never ends well for the big fish.
Either the fish gets caught and eaten by a fisherman, or natural selection takes over and all the small fish swim up the feeder stream and out of harm’s way, leaving the big fish to starve to death for want of food.
And if they can’t find some opponents, and fast, St. Frances might just find itself a gridiron sushi dinner.
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