Kalamazoo Gazette sports writer Scott DeCamp did a piece marked “opinion” in which he wrote about what the new high school basketball schedules are doing to attendance. Girls’ basketball used to be in the fall; now it has been mandated that it should be in the winter, same as the boys’. It’s for equity’s sake, I guess.
One downside has been that attendance is down, mostly for the girls’ games and somewhat for boys’ games, too. The problem for grandparents and others is that it’s just too much basketball all at the same time, so they have to pick and choose.
The coach he interviewed for the article says the old way was working fine, so why mess with it?
Then comes the sleazy part:
My opinon–one that Kevin Langs [the coach] agrees with, by the way — is that like it or not, the new seasons are here to stay. Michigan’s way of conducting high school sports in the past may have been better than other states, but that doesn’t matter now.
Well, if it doesn’t matter, why did the writer bring it up? And after the coach gave his opinion, why did he promise to give his own, and then weasel out of it by saying “it’s here to stay”. That’s not an opinion on whether or not it’s a good thing. And why is he progosticating about the future and pretending not to be a participant in determining what that future is going to be?
We used to have a congressman who pulled that stunt whenever he was asked, “do you favor a change in X.” His response: “It’s not going to happen in this Congress.” And the media would never challenge him by pointing out that that is hardly an answer to the question.
Now we have the media doing similar ploys.
Here’s the URL for the article.