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  Have a question for Rene Ferran? He'll answer it in his weekly mailbag every Tuesday. Ask your question by voice mail (509-582-1526) or send an e-mail. |
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Thursday, May. 15, 2008
Dipping into the mailbag
By Rene Ferran, Herald staff writer
Got a couple of e-mails this week reacting to an earlier blog about standardizing athletic codes.
Here’s Ross from Prosser’s take: In all fairness, the rules in my opinion should be standardized, fair, and progress for ALL school districts. They should be clear and set where no gray area or manipulation can take place. Student-athletes should be well-educated on them prior to signing up for any sport and should be held accountable. It shouldn’t matter if you play for Bellevue or Davenport in football or wrestling, and it should not be a “case for case” basis or based on the individual and the circumstances -- if there is a violation of drugs, alcohol, or tobacco or worse, if there, that opens all up to favoritism, and exploitation and manipulation. You’ll probably get lots of scenarios of “well, if a kid threw a party with alcohol involved, and no one got hurt, what’s the big deal?” vs. a kid threw the same party and one of them left drunk and killed an innocent person. There is no difference, probably happened in the first scenario but by a stroke of God, no one got hurt, but the same law breaking/rule breaking and liability are there as can be stated in many other scenarios. Case and point, if the kids break them, regardless of what occurs, they should be standardized, progress, and fair. Just my 2 cents. Keep up the great work and can’t wait till Football Season!
Mike from West Richland also weighed in: This is a good subject to get out into a public forum and the inconsistencies across Districts have bothered me for sometime. I have been involved with a number of athletic/activities code appeal hearings at the Richland School District (RSD). RSD has a pretty tough policy, which is the message the School Board wanted to send. The current policy for athletes is a 60-day suspension with 15 days held in abeyance if you attend a alcohol/drug class. ASB officers and cheerleaders are suspended for the whole school year.
For me, it’s very hard to stand up and challenge this as being too harsh because pushing kids away from these behaviors is clearly the mission we need to send. But what I have seen from personal experience, as part of these appeal hearings, is that booting a student from the sport or activity takes them from a structured environment where the right messages are being sent to a bunch of free time to hang out with their buddies. That part has always made me wonder. There has to be some options -- for example you are now in charge of the towels for the next three weeks. But that’s another subject.
On the inconsistencies, I remember the most glaring example was when Hanford-West Valley were battling in Regionals when (my son) Michael was playing and one of their top kids was punished just before the tournament and was able to play later in the tournament. We lost a kid early on in the season who was a key player and he was done for the season -- he didn’t play in the tournament. It would have made a difference. Consistency would be good, but also with a little rationale behind the punishment.
That’s definitely the argument behind consistency -- why should one school district’s teams gain an advantage because their athletic code allows for only a short suspension while another’s calls for a season-long ban?
I don’t know what the right length of a suspension should be. I would simply argue it should be uniform across the state.
Til next time ...
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