Dear friends, Usually it isn't good business smarts to put a newspaper column on the Internet, but I'm making an exception this week, just this one time, just on this Asbury Park website.
A little dust up at the triCityNews. I want our High School Football team on the cover, so people will go to their Championship game. The folks that run triCity disagree. I'm sure my column about High School Football will get bumped from the front page for the opening of the one millionth antique store or the one billionth "artist" that can't paint worth a damn. So in the spirit of the rebellion and using the power of the Internet, I'm printing my column below, to alert everyone to Friday night's championship game. What's triCityNews gonna do, fire me? Enjoy: ASBURY FOOTBALL VIES FOR STATE TITLE FRIDAY NIGHT Adults And Politics Can't Stop Them This Year An atheist is a guy who watches a Notre Dame-SMU football game and doesn't care who wins. President Eisenhower Football is import. A town is judged on the quality of its football team. A school is judged on the success its program. Spirits soar when the school team is winning. Even kids who don't play get the idea that their school is in good hands when the adults have their act together enough to make sure all is in place to help the team beat other schools. The scoreboard builds confidence. Friday night, November 30 at 5:00, the Asbury Park High School Football Team plays for their section's State Championship. Asbury Park hasn't played for a Championship in 20 years, and hasn't won one in 23. The game will be held at Rutgers in New Brunswick. Please make the time to go to this game. The Asbury Park High School players will get an adrenaline boost when they hear a roaring crowd. They play against Keansburg. Keansburg is a football town, with a good program from Pop Warner on up. Make no mistake, Keansburg will fill seats at Rutgers. They won't let their players down, and neither should we. The only way to show Asbury players support is to be there. They won't know you wish them well from your homes. Let's let Asbury players beat Keanburg's numbers on the scoreboard, while we beat Keansburg's numbers in the stands. Let me tell you of three recent stories about Asbury Football that might explain why we haven't been State Champs for two and a half decades. About 7 or 8 years ago Asbury had a great team. We were 8-0 and heading for a State Championship. Then there was a complaint made to the NJSIAA, the governing body. One of our players was in a program that required him to go to tutoring. He didn't go to tutoring, because the school never offered it. So what punishment did the NJSIAA impose upon Asbury for having a student that didn't go to tutoring? They turned our 8-0 record into an 0-8 record. Bye-Bye playoffs. They didn't care about all the work every kid on the team did on that field to go undefeated. They punished everyone for an off the field infraction. They stole the season. In professional football, if you have too many men on the field it's a five-yard penalty. Throwing to an ineligible receiver is loss of a down. For the NJSIAA to wipe out a whole season and crush the hopes of all those kids and the City for an off field "tutoring infraction" was a giant middle finger to the City of Asbury Park. This Friday, lets give it back to them. By the way, the young man who missed the tutoring, who this whole system is supposedly set up to serve he quit school. He never returned to High School after the ruling because he felt responsible, even though the school never offered the tutoring. What a heartbreak. I get sick thinking about it. Then a few years ago, we had a star quarterback, who the NJSIAA said could not play his whole senior year. When he was in 8th grade, knowing he was going to be a star, the High School coach let him suit up and take some snaps with the High School team, just to give him a thrill. The NJSIAA ruled that 8th grade was his first year of eligibility for taking the snaps, and you only get four - so no senior year play for him. There was a challenge to the ruling, and a settlement was made where the quarterback was suspended for two games. In a 10 game seasons, two games can keep you out of the playoffs. Then there was last year. The Asbury Park Board of Education (Bored of Education?) is notorious for concentrating on gossip, tearing people down and personnel issues. The students never seem to come up in their dealings. Last year, the Board of Ed actually let the players start the season without a coach, because some power play was going on having to do with who was hired in a number of positions. The kids couldn't recover from the mayhem that resulted from the lack of a coach and went 1-9. This year is different. There is a new young principal in 33-year-old Tyler Blackmore who moved here and has everyone excited. New football coach Don Sofilkanich is getting the job done. This year, no complaints about the School can stop us. The NJSIAA can't stop us. Jackasses on the Board of Ed can't stop us. Only Keansburg can stop us, and that's not going to happen. Asbury Park 28 - Keanburg 17.
