Alamance County’s leaders were nearly thrown off their game this week when a group of concerned parents confronted them about rumors that the county’s recreation department has decided to phase out its peewee football program.
This community uprising culminated on Monday when more than two dozen area residents rushed the county’s board of commissioners after hearing that the rec department had soured on tackle football due to the “competitive” nature of this full-contact sport.
This blitz was halted – at least for the moment – by the county’s recreation director, who insisted that her department’s detractors have misconstrued the actual reasons behind the apparent de-emphasis of youth football. Yet, the situation prior to the rec director’s appearance seemed a bit touch-and-go for the commissioners, as they stared down the defensive line of constituents who were determined not to give up their favorite county-organized sport.
This epic clash over peewee football was at least partly a byproduct of the slow decline of a once-mighty county-backed league that, according to some recollections, included about 20 teams at its height. Over the years, these clubs have gradually dwindled down to four that the rec department had left on the roster as it began to prepare a game schedule for this fall’s football season.
The county’s gradual reduction in teams has been exacerbated by some apparent misunderstandings that had been making the rounds about the rec department’s long-term intentions for peewee football and other team sports. These rumors were certainly front and center on Monday as one resident after another approached the board of commissioners during a designated public comment period at the beginning of that evening’s meeting.
Monday night lights
The commissioners ultimately heard from eight residents who had concerns about the rec department’s commitment to competitive sports. These speakers included two candidates for elected office – namely Anthony Pierce, a Democratic contender for the board of commissioners; and Robin Wintringham, who is representing the Democratic Party in the race for North Carolina’s 63rd state house district.
The other half dozen speakers were all parents of children who play county sports, and each one of them seemed to have some heartfelt concerns about the rec department’s plans for peewee football.
“We’re being told that we won’t have traditional tackle football anymore. I don’t want to say [it would be] ‘sissified,’ but really that’s what it’s going to be.”
– Roxanne May
The rumblings that the department’s staff had forsaken the gridiron were particularly troubling to parents like Roxanne May.
“We’re being told that we won’t have traditional tackle football anymore,” May told the commissioners when she got her turn at the podium. “I don’t want to say [it would be] ‘sissified,’ but really that’s what it’s going to be.”
“Competitive sports are good for kids. It teaches them resilience, camaraderie, and how to handle wins and losses with grace. . . Some of these kids have nowhere else to for a release. . . They put their heart and soul into every aspect of the game. They leave it all on the gridiron.”
– Jessica Evans
“Competitive sports are good for kids,” added fellow football mom Jessica Evans. “It teaches them resilience, camaraderie, and how to handle wins and losses with grace…Some of these kids have nowhere else to for a release…They put their heart and soul into every aspect of the game. They leave it all on the gridiron.”
Evans added that for many families, the only alternative to the county rec league is travel football, which she added isn’t a viable option for a single mom like herself with three sons to raise.
The commissioners heard a similar objection from Ursula Evans, the mother of a 12-year-old son (and no relation to Jessica Evans).
“We need to keep these types of programs in place. Kids need that structure; they need that balance; they need that discipline…The competition needs to be there. This is a taste of what real life is.”
– Ursula Evans
“We need to keep these types of programs in place,” Ursula Evans implored the commissioners. “Kids need that structure; they need that balance; they need that discipline…The competition needs to be there. This is a taste of what real life is.”
Jennifer Warren, a science teacher and parent of two, said that the county athletic leagues have been a long-time tradition for both herself and her husband since they, too, were children.
“We have been in county rec since we were little, and it’s been a part of our whole life.”
– Jennifer Warren
“We have been in county rec since we were little, and it’s been a part of our whole life,” Warren acknowledged. “We now have a 13-year-old who’s playing at Woodlawn, and we have an 11 year old daughter who’s playing football on the 12-year-old team at Hawfields…There’s a healthy competition in our home…and we need competition throughout our life.
The virtue of friendly competition was equally dear to Jennifer McGowan, another “sports mom” who told the commissioners that she currently serves as the associate director for the Hawfields Jaguars.
“Competitive sports mean a lot to these kids; this is the only time they can be a kid. If you take this away from them, it will take the only thing that some of these kids love.”
– Jennifer McGowan
“Competitive sports mean a lot to these kids; this is the only time they can be a kid,” McGowan said. “If you take this away from them, it will take the only thing that some of these kids love.”
Meanwhile, Mebane resident Mike Poynter offered a deeply personal take on the formative value of football for children.
“My stepson lives, breathes, and football – and when I say he ‘eats’ football, I mean that he has a football-specific oatmeal he eats just before practice,” Poynter explained. “He just started last year, and this is his second year…and the child I is see this year compared to last year is completely different…It has built so much character in him.”
An offensive defense?
This litany of parental concern was not at all wasted on the county’s governing board. In fact, the pleas that the commissioners heard were sufficiently moving to prompt their chairman, John Paisley, Jr., to suggest a rare change to Monday’s agenda so that he and his colleagues could address these remarks directly after the comment period rather than at the end of the three-hour meeting, as per the board’s policy.
Each of the five commissioners proceeded to offer some conciliatory words to the county football enthusiasts who approached them that evening. Commissioner Bill Lashley, a Burlington resident whose late father had preceded him on the board of commissioners, acknowledged that he, too, was a product of the county rec department’s athletic leagues.
“I played rec ball in the county, and I lived in the city. I think it’s really important to learn how to compete, and how to lose, and about conflict resolution.”
– County commissioner Bill Lashley
“I played rec ball in the county, and I lived in the city,” he said. “I think it’s really important to learn how to compete, and how to lose, and about conflict resolution.”
In the end, though, the commissioners turned to the county’s rec director Jamie Merchel to run interference for them against the onslaught of indignant residents.
Merchel ultimately tried to assuage her department’s critics by clarifying a few points about the county’s peewee football league. She noted that her department fields this league in tandem with the municipal rec departments in Mebane and Gibsonville. These two municipalities help the county cover the cost of referees for the football program, while the teams themselves pick up the tab for equipment. She added that the two municipalities also organize youth basketball leagues, which prevents her department from drawing out the football season through the end of November.
Merchel also acknowledged that the football leagues constituent teams are mustered independently by civic organizations and other sponsors, which are under no obligation to stay in the league when other opportunities come knocking. She recalled that such a defection recently occurred when the Central Carolina Youth Athletic League lured away a county team from Green Level, reducing her own agency’s roster from five teams to four.
“So, it’s not looking the traditional way that it was when there were 19 or 20 teams participating in the county,” the county’s rec director admitted. Merchel nevertheless stressed that she and her staff have labored to provide their four extant teams with the same opportunities to take the field that they had last season.
“Last season, there were five regular season conference games followed by a single elimination playoff,” the county’s rec director recalled. “This year, it is the same number of guaranteed games as last season…There’s four regular season games because there’s one less organization participating, but there are two guaranteed games in the playoffs.”
Merchel later elaborated that, in the post season, each of the four teams will first compete for a slot in the championship game. The losers will then play each other in a “consolation” game, while the winners square off for the title.
Merchel went on to concede that the football league’s dwindling number of teams has prompted her department to reevaluate the emphasis it has traditionally put on peewee football. She added that this reappraisal has led to the development of a staff-level plan for youth athletics, which would continue the department’s commitments to baseball and basketball while expanding its repertoire to include other sports that the county had previously neglected. Merchel insisted, however, that the department never set out to abandon youth football when it embarked on this exercise.
“That was not the intent or was it ever the intent of restructuring the collaborative football league,” she declared. “We’re still going to offer baseball, and we’re still going to offer basketball…and we were creatively looking with our board and our staff at ways that we can use the budget we have to offer more.”
Into overtime
Merchel’s conspicuous omission of football from her description of the plan may have left some of her critics feeling like Charlie Brown when the mischievous Lucy invites him to take a running kick at a football she’s holding in place.
The county’s recreation director nevertheless assured the commissioners that her department’s proposal is much different from what the critics assume, and she offered to round up some of her staff members to present the plan so that the commissioners can judge the particulars for themselves.
“We’re willing to talk and to look at this,” she added. “But what we want to do is present what our plan is because it sounds like there’s a lot of misinformation out there.”
The commissioners tentatively accepted Merchel’s offer to go over the plan in more detail. Yet, the financial considerations behind the rec department’s proposal raised some disquieting suspicions for commissioner Pam Thompson.
“I think we have a priority problem,” she told Merchel, “and I think the kids are getting the short end of the stick.”
