January 12, 2017 at 6:00 p.m.
JCHS is lacking the right coaches
Letters to the editor
To the editor:
Forty-one years ago last August my wife slipped over to the new Jay County High School on her lunch break to purchase super tickets to all athletic contests to be held there.
I can still remember how thrilled I was at the prospect of all these games for one low price, especially football games.
I recall, like it was yesterday, being so thrilled the hair on my arms stood straight up hearing the new band play one of the best known fight songs in all of football. This was the start of a string of more than 20 consecutive years of never missing a game, home or away.
I was thrilled to pieces watching an Irish exchange student kick a last-second field goal to beat a terrific Delta team. Equally as thrilling was watching our Patriots defeat the Richmond Red Devils on their home field. That win proved that we belonged. Just as thrilling was seeing our Pats go up by a TD over Carmel on their field, only to have a “blind Tom” referee take the TD away by throwing a flag on an imaginary violation. There were many more thrills over the years. I can’t recall all of them.
Nowadays, with apologies to the late, great B.B. King, the thrills are gone.
Nowadays, I’m just tired.
I’m tired of being the biggest kid on the block and lucky to beat teams we should be crushing.
I’m tired of a school board that doesn’t care whether we ever win a game or not.
I’m tired of a past athletics director who dumbed down the schedule and a protégé who is continuing in his footsteps and will probably try to schedule the Indiana School for the Blind just to get a W.
I’m tired of hearing “we just don’t have the athletes,” when I know the quality of a school’s athletes is attributable to its coaches.
The coaches that we have are, to the best of my knowledge, good, solid, church-going people, good parents, good citizens. What they aren’t is the type of coaches needed to turn around a once-solid program.
Other than losing 30 pounds of ugly fat, my biggest resolution for 2017 is no more nasty letters about Jay County sports.
No one seems to care anyway.
Respectfully,
Larry Chittum
Portland
Forty-one years ago last August my wife slipped over to the new Jay County High School on her lunch break to purchase super tickets to all athletic contests to be held there.
I can still remember how thrilled I was at the prospect of all these games for one low price, especially football games.
I recall, like it was yesterday, being so thrilled the hair on my arms stood straight up hearing the new band play one of the best known fight songs in all of football. This was the start of a string of more than 20 consecutive years of never missing a game, home or away.
I was thrilled to pieces watching an Irish exchange student kick a last-second field goal to beat a terrific Delta team. Equally as thrilling was watching our Patriots defeat the Richmond Red Devils on their home field. That win proved that we belonged. Just as thrilling was seeing our Pats go up by a TD over Carmel on their field, only to have a “blind Tom” referee take the TD away by throwing a flag on an imaginary violation. There were many more thrills over the years. I can’t recall all of them.
Nowadays, with apologies to the late, great B.B. King, the thrills are gone.
Nowadays, I’m just tired.
I’m tired of being the biggest kid on the block and lucky to beat teams we should be crushing.
I’m tired of a school board that doesn’t care whether we ever win a game or not.
I’m tired of a past athletics director who dumbed down the schedule and a protégé who is continuing in his footsteps and will probably try to schedule the Indiana School for the Blind just to get a W.
I’m tired of hearing “we just don’t have the athletes,” when I know the quality of a school’s athletes is attributable to its coaches.
The coaches that we have are, to the best of my knowledge, good, solid, church-going people, good parents, good citizens. What they aren’t is the type of coaches needed to turn around a once-solid program.
Other than losing 30 pounds of ugly fat, my biggest resolution for 2017 is no more nasty letters about Jay County sports.
No one seems to care anyway.
Respectfully,
Larry Chittum
Portland
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