Earlier this month St. George's, a private school in Rhode Island cancelled their football game against fellow Independent School Lawrence Academy from Massachusetts. St. George's headmaster Eric Peterson told the Boston Globe that they cancelled the game because of the students safety. "We are trying to keep our kids reasonably safe in a game that can be terribly exciting but has risks", said Peterson.
Lawrence Academy has been dominant thus far, putting up over 30 points a game on their way to a 4-0 start. They have five players that have committed to Division I schools and an offensive line that outweighs St. George's by an average of 100 pounds. Still the announcement of a forfeit came as bit of a surprise as it’s not something we typically see in high school sports.
If you go to St. George's athletic page on their website you will find articles titled "Athletics is a way of life at St. George's" and "St. George's has along athletic tradition." To me cancelling a game based on the competition's size and athletic ability seems to be a contradiction of these headlines.
In life there is always someone that is going to be bigger, stronger, smarter or faster than you. However, the bigger team does not always win. Not allowing young men to compete in athletics because they face a superior team sends the wrong message. Football is a physical sport and injuries do occur. Why would St. George’s field a football team if the school was concerned about the young men getting injured?
Once you quit one thing it becomes easier to quit on other things in life. These are young men that are in high school they are not little kids. The message that was sent to these young men is that when you encounter something in life that may be difficult it is ok to give up. What about those young men on the team that wanted to play because they respect competition? Eric Peterson’s message to them was that you’re not good enough to compete with Lawrence Academy.
Part of growing up involves being defeated at times. You learn from your mistakes after a bad loss and try to improve for the next game. Suffering a sound defeat could have been a humbling experience to the St. George’s program. The forfeit sent the wrong message to young men about facing difficult challenges in life.
