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Sunday, February 15, 2009

North Coast Fans Are Angry

Sunday, February 8, 2009

North Coast People Are Angry...etc.

The swirl of controversy surrounding Eureka High's boys basketball team resulted in one North Coast fans suggesting that criticism of individual players indicates how poorly the boys conduct themselves because, he wrote, folks never see area fans being critical of other athletes.

The comment went on to include a list of North Coast athletes like Rey Maualuga, Mo Purify and a who's who of current high school stars. The writer stated that the Loggers basketball kids are deserving of criticism and the proof comes in knowing that Maualuga, Purify and the others never catch flak from area fans.

Virtually every athlete the fan mentioned has, indeed, been criticized in the very public newspaper forums up there. Purify got trashed when he signed with the Cincinnati Bengals. Maualuga gets knocked off and on by people who feel obligated to point out that he might be an All-America football star, but that he was just a kid who got in trouble like everybody else in Eureka. And, with only a few exceptions, high school stars get ripped in the most personal manner as if they're professionals who, in part, earn their paycheck by taking their lumps.

It seems like North Coast sports fans are angry -- or, perhaps, sports fans are angry. Maybe some fans care too much or take it all too personally. Regardless, high school and other small-market athletes don't get that really harsh treatment in many other places.

The other day, I wrote two stories about Justin-Siena High school athletes who'll be leaving Napa to attend college and compete on scholarship in football and track and field respectively. The football player's going to Washington State, while the track athlete's headed for Stanford.

The Napa area treats high school athletes much like they're treated on the North Coast. The newspaper features them, even over nearby professional and major college athletes. The kids in Napa get the star treatment. So, if it was simply a matter of small-market fans resenting small-market "stars," there'd be some backlash when two Napa athletes are featured as a result of accepting scholarships.

There were five reader comments to the stories about the athletes. (And, five comments are about five more than sports stories usually get.) All five were positive and in praise of the athletes. There wasn't one comment aimed at questioning the kids' talents or their GPA. Nobody wrote to mention that they saw one of the kids do something wrong once.

Granted, the kids I wrote about seem to be stellar high school citizens. I'd wager that they've never done anything that would prompt some fan to log on to a public forum and assault their folks for being bad parents.

Still...if was a "sports fan" anger we note on the North Coast, there'd be some similar resentment to athletes in other places. It seems as though the North Coast sports fans are more angry, more easily, than most. And, they manage to make it all more personal than it is in high school sports circles elsewhere.

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Two things can be equally true. High school athletes can be held to the same rules that apply to every other high school student. High school athletes shouldn't be targeted in public forums for vicious personal attacks.
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I joined Facebook yesterday and, apparently, only two people who attended Eureka High School in the 1970s has the computer knowledge and interest in social networking to have joined what my kids assure me is a really interesting development in Internet content. Or, I suppose, I just don't know how to search Facebook to find people I might have attended school with.
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There's good and bad living in a metropolitan area like the one we reside in these days. One good thing is that a youngster can escape whatever tags they pick up as they progress through school. Kids aren't necessarily stuck with the "goof-off" tag that followed them from Cutten Elementary to Winship when they get to Eureka High. Kids involved in sports literally get a fresh start when they go from middle school to high school.

Knowing that the middle school experience doesn't dictate the type of high school experience a kid will have makes the middle school sports experience more enjoyable for parents...well, for me. In a larger area, it's easier for parents to enjoy (if we're willing) each team and each sport as an individual entity. Kids move around. Adults don't know everything about every kid's weakness or strength. I know I felt like the first year of Little League was the first step to making the high school team when we lived up there.

It's probably better to give high school coaches the final word on who plays than to give increasingly more clout to coaches from youth ball forward. You know?

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