Big game around here is just about to start as I type this.
"Agawam won’t cancel football game; School officials suspend eight in hazing incident" by Peter Schworm and John Guilfoil, Globe Staff / November 23, 2010
AGAWAM — School officials decided yesterday against canceling the Thanksgiving Day football game as punishment for a hazing episode involving at least 10 team members, amid pressure to uphold the anticipated sporting tradition....
Agawam School Superintendent Mary A. Czajkowski also canceled a bonfire slated for tomorrow night.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Football is Fun
Not anymore.
At an afternoon press conference, Czajkowski declined to provide details about the incident, which took place in the locker room after practice last week and targeted seven younger players. But she said the conduct was more than horseplay.
“This was clearly a situation that went beyond what I call towel whipping,’’ she said, adding that no one was injured.
Czajkowski said she was “extremely disappointed with the actions of our students’’ and said she hoped the punishment would send a message that “this is not the kind of behavior that we want in our schools.’’
But we accept it from a mass-murdering and molesting government.
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The prospect of Thanksgiving without the big game had upset many parents and alumni in Agawam and neighboring West Springfield, and the decision to let the teams play was a relief.
“It’s important not to punish the entire community and those kids who have not participated,’’ said Mayor Richard A. Cohen....
Unless they are PALESTINIAN, right?
Cohen and Czajkowski said they had received many calls from people urging them to allow the game to proceed as scheduled.
Yes, THIS IS WHAT AmeriKans are worked up about.
Not the unending wars based on lies or the massive bank looting, but is the football game going to be played!
“I think that’s really critical for this community,’’ she said.
That's why it is AmeriKa now.
The incident was the latest in a series of hazing and bullying incidents that have drawn attention amid growing scrutiny of teenage harassment.
It's okay if you are a lying, looting government though.
Earlier this month, members of the high school girls soccer team in Needham were suspended before a tournament game after allegedly hazing younger teammates, prompting a wide-ranging debate on when such activities cross the line from team bonding and risk upsetting students.
Parents of some of the suspended Needham students were so upset over the suspension that they asked a judge to lift the suspension and allow them to play, but the judge refused....
The Needham offense (left) lined up against Wellesley during the girls’ powder puff football game yesterday. (Jon Mahoney for The Boston Globe)
Just what the country needs: girls taking up football and absorbing its mentality.
"Powder puff game lives up to towns’ rivalry; With police help, girls’ contest is all fun, no fights" by Katrina Ballard, Globe Correspondent / November 25, 2010
WELLESLEY — Clad in blue shirts, goldenrod shorts, and black leggings, the Needham girls powder puff football team stood along the sideline yesterday, hopping up and down, as much from adrenaline as from the chilly weather.
“I’ve been waiting all four years of high school for this,’’ said Courtney Steeves, 18, staring across the field at the rival Wellesley High team.
"Powder puff game lives up to towns’ rivalry; With police help, girls’ contest is all fun, no fights" by Katrina Ballard, Globe Correspondent / November 25, 2010
WELLESLEY — Clad in blue shirts, goldenrod shorts, and black leggings, the Needham girls powder puff football team stood along the sideline yesterday, hopping up and down, as much from adrenaline as from the chilly weather.
“I’ve been waiting all four years of high school for this,’’ said Courtney Steeves, 18, staring across the field at the rival Wellesley High team.
The Wellesley girls, wearing red shirts and black pants, were screaming so loudly they drowned out the Needham players across the field. They had nothing to lose. Needham had beaten them three years in a row, hanging on to a powder puff trophy Wellesley was determined to win back.
“We’re really competitive,’’ said Erin Baker, 18, of Wellesley. The Needham-Wellesley powder puff football game has been held the day before the boys’ Thanksgiving Day matchup since the 1980s, a boys’ rivalry that the towns contend is the nation’s oldest public-school sports rivalry.
Until the past decade, however, the powder puff games were secretly held by students in the woods and would attract underage drinking and violence between the schools....
Related: Friday Night Football Killed Teen Girl
It got so bad that the towns’ police departments volunteered to take over the tradition and coach the senior girls to compete for a trophy each year. Now the game is quite a bit more peaceful, but no less passionate.
At yesterday’s game, a group of shirtless boys with blue paint on their faces and chests spelling “NHS!’’ cheered on the sidelines, blowing blue plastic horns. “I love this,’’ said Tyler Reilly, 17, a Needham High senior.
Not a vuvuzela I hope.
Said Christina Gagosian, 17, “It’s a women-bonding thing, a rite of passage’’
You couldn't come up with something else?
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Yesterday’s game was a far cry from the pranks of years ago.
In 1991, some Needham students planted a rocket on the Wellesley field to show support for their mascot (the Needham Rockets), but officials at first thought the device was a bomb and the Thanksgiving game was delayed a day.
Now it would be a TERROR ALERT!
The Globe reported the rocket incident at the time, along with fans’ concerns that the prank and the powder puff “rumbles’’ were taking the rivalry too far. The Globe quoted one graduate as saying that students looked forward to the powder puff fight more than the game.
“We were chasing them through the woods,’’ said Officer Mike Schlittler, who coaches the Needham team. “The kids were put into a situation where they were going to get injured.’’
But it is OKAY to SEND THEM OFF TO WARS based on LIES!
Hell, the football games on TV today will be CELEBRATING THEM!
Now-retired Holliston Police Chief Tom Lambert, who was a sergeant in Needham at the time, led the effort to get the police involved with the game in 2000, said Schlittler. The first couple of years had a low turnout, but participation has grown ever since, he said.
The organized games now attract family, friends, and even teachers in the stands, although the event is still not school-sanctioned and the football team is not supposed to attend, said Officer Tim Barrows of the Wellesley police.
“They’ve really taken what could’ve been a bad experience for many people and turned it into something great and positive,’’ said Diana Parkhurst, a wellness teacher at Needham High.
Unlike their soccer sisters.
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Some fans are going to be disappointed:
"The Thanksgiving Day football game between Maynard High School and Clinton High has been canceled after four Maynard players were suspended because they were intoxicated on the night of the homecoming dance, a school official said yesterday....
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That's worthy of a FRONT-PAGE, A1 STORY!
"Without big game, many find the holiday lacking" by Peter Schworm, Globe Staff / November 25, 2010
CLINTON — Like many others who call this former mill town home, Randy Paynter never misses the Thanksgiving Day high school football game. It seems that everyone in town is there, he said. It’s a reunion and a public prelude to the family feast.
But with the marquee game against Maynard High School canceled this year, fans and players in both towns are mourning the absence of a cherished holiday tradition. For Paynter and many others, Thanksgiving without high school football feels incomplete, like mashed potatoes without the gravy....
School officials in Maynard canceled the game this week after three upperclassmen on the team showed up drunk at the school’s homecoming dance last Friday, and a fourth was found intoxicated in a local home. The four suspensions left the team with only 12 active players, which school officials deemed too few to compete.
But with the marquee game against Maynard High School canceled this year, fans and players in both towns are mourning the absence of a cherished holiday tradition. For Paynter and many others, Thanksgiving without high school football feels incomplete, like mashed potatoes without the gravy....
School officials in Maynard canceled the game this week after three upperclassmen on the team showed up drunk at the school’s homecoming dance last Friday, and a fourth was found intoxicated in a local home. The four suspensions left the team with only 12 active players, which school officials deemed too few to compete.
The superintendent, Mark R. Masterson, said it was the first time a Maynard sporting event had been canceled because of alcohol violations. but he called the punishments “standard and appropriate.’’
Many residents in both towns agreed and said the students should be ashamed of themselves for spoiling an important tradition. But they said Maynard should still have fielded a team to uphold a tradition dating back decades....
And if a couple of kids get hurt?
And DON'T YOU DARE QUESTION TRADITION, American!
Bill Duggan, 68, has a grandson on the team and said it did not seem right that a few misbehaving teenagers could spoil things for everyone....
Puts me in mind of the a**hole Zionists, globalist neo-con s***s, and banksters kicking around the planet and wrecking it for the rest of us.
You damn kids!
While disappointment that the game will not be played is widespread, people feel particularly bad for seniors missing their final Thanksgiving Day game....
Terrance Ingano, superintendent of the Clinton public schools, said the cancellation served as an important, if painful, lesson to students.
“When you start to only think of yourself and you do something dumb — and kids do that, it’s the way it is — the ramifications of it go on and on,’’ he said. “The ripple effect is unbelievable....’’
Yeah, unless you are a FRAUDULENT FINANCIAL HOUSE that RIPPED EVERYONE OFF!
Then you get trillions in taxpayer bailouts.
Clinton athletic director John J. Gibbons Jr. said attendance at the game would probably have approached 1,000, depriving the schools of badly needed revenue and the community of a popular pastime.
And now the school is crying POVERTY?
Time to PUNT, readers.
“It’s a big community gathering,’’ he said. “It’s a very disappointing turn of events.’’
Yeah, why would anyone want to waste time protesting lying, looting wars or banks?
Students took it especially hard. Wearing a green school jacket, Brittany Bedard, a Clinton freshman, said she was excited for the pageantry of the big game, her first as a Clinton High student.
Let the BRAINWASHING BEGIN!
“I was really looking forward to it,’’ she said. “Now it’s ruined for everybody.’’
I say we haul the four kids out to the town common and hang 'em!!
Those bastards!!!!
In Maynard, freshman Keith Beatty said most students think that canceling the game was too harsh.
Then PUT SOME PADS on and GET OUT THERE and HELP!
Set-hike, kiddo!!
“A lot of people are upset,’’ he said. “They think they should have played anyway.’’
Still, many people were thankful for one blessing.
Said Lenny Mills: “We’ve got the Patriots on at 1.’’
You know where I will be later today, readers.
Such are the demands of socialization in AmeriKa today.
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Also see: New caution over concussions delays return to action
Reading the paper makes me feel woozy. Maybe I should get checked.
