The Pit (Trona Football)

News pertaining directly to Trona, Death Valley, the northern Mojave Desert, Inyo County, and adjacent areas.

Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby panamint_patty » Mon Nov 23, 2015 2:01 pm

Coach is wrong to pray on field
I'm surprised that in this day and age that any school employee would be stupid enough to lead a group of students in prayer while on school property. Is the guy so incredibly ignorant that he's never heard of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Any disgruntled player or ex-player could easily turn this into a lawsuit with a high dollar price tag on it and any citizen in the community could also file a lawsuit although the damages would be significantly lower.
Our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but it also specifies that our government must remain neutral on matters of religion. It is in fact unconstitutional for public school athletic coaches to lead students in prayer and to conduct any religious activity around their students.

LINK: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20151110/OPINION02/151119977
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby ergot » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:59 pm

District Faces Lawsuit Over Pre-Game Prayers
Religion should never be imposed on students. Any time a coach leads a prayer with his team, players are likely to feel coerced into participating. Otherwise there could be reprisals. Even a coach who insists that its all voluntary may still unintentionally or subconsciously treat those who participate better than those who don't.
According to the lawsuit, the Bellars’ son who is identified by the initials J.B., played on several teams for his school and witnessed coach-led sectarian prayers before games or matches. When J.B. and another student complained to their football coach about the prayers, the lawsuit says they “were told that they had the option to just sit there and be quiet but that the prayers would continue and that they had to remain huddled with the team.”

LINK:
http://www.athleticbusiness.com/civil-actions/district-faces-lawsuit-after-prayers-said-at-school-events.html
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby shadylady » Tue Nov 24, 2015 5:56 pm

Pray To Play?: Ind. Family Sticks To Lawsuit To End Promotion Of Religion At School
There is no ambiguity here. Religion does not belong in public schools in any form. Any administrator who looks the other way and allows religious activity in his district or school is grossly negligent and should be removed from his position and sued for failure to protect the civil rights of students.
These aren’t victimless crimes. When school administrators fail their responsibility to uphold church-state separation, students suffer. That should disturb any educator, but case after case demonstrates that many still place their personal religious convictions over the welfare of their students.

LINK:
https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/pray-to-play-ind-family-sticks-to-lawsuit-to-end-promotion-of-religion-at
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby hokey smokes » Sat Nov 28, 2015 9:54 am

cactuspete wrote:From the last forty seconds of the clip:
Trona sits alone against a derelict desert landscape, not far from the infamous California Death Valley. The scorching heat and salinity of the ground make it impossible to grow grass, giving Trona High School the only official dirt football field in the entire U.S. Blah... blah... blah... BS and more BS...

While it is true that Trona has one of only two sanctioned high school football fields in the USA, the negativity about the desert is inexcusable. If you don't love the desert, then you don't love Trona.

cactuspete: I think you left the word DIRT out of your reply. I did a little fact-checking and it appears that you are correct.
Apart from the football field at Juneau High in Alaska, which is made of glacial silt, Trona may have the only all-dirt field left in the United States.

LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/us/a-shrinking-team-but-a-home-field-advantage.html
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby BoraxBill » Sun Nov 29, 2015 7:50 am

cactuspete wrote:
wildrose wrote:
recluse wrote:The Sandman (official video)
Well, it's a bit melodramatic and the religiosity gets real old real fast, but the production is pretty good. The problem is that the video takes itself WAY too seriously.

It would be interesting to know if this video was authorized by the administration of the school district. It certainly puts the district in a rather precarious legal position. All it would take is one competent lawyer to turn this into a $2 million settlement. The ACLU has quite a list of lawyers who could have lots of fun with a video like this.

The legal ramifications of this video are truly startling. IMHO, whoever authorized this video is a total and complete idiot. The cheap theatrics and melodrama are annoying to say the least, but it gets worse. Not only does the video put the school district in a bad legal position, but the video-maker then engages in some serious Trona-bashing at the end of this poorly conceived clip. From the last forty seconds of the clip:
Trona sits alone against a derelict desert landscape, not far from the infamous California Death Valley. The scorching heat and salinity of the ground make it impossible to grow grass, giving Trona High School the only official dirt football field in the entire U.S. Blah... blah... blah... BS and more BS...

While it is true that Trona has one of only two sanctioned high school football fields in the USA, the negativity about the desert is inexcusable. If you don't love the desert, then you don't love Trona.

It occurs to me that the makers of this video are also open to charges of exploitation of minors. All those shirtless boys in a tight group around the coach can certainly be seen as having homoerotic elements. Whether or not there's any of that kind of thing going on, I can't say, but it would not be unreasonable to criticize the film-maker for poor judgement in this regards. Personally I'm a live and let live kind of person, but people in this society seem to be chomping at the bit to criticize and so failure to anticipate commonly occurring forms of criticism can often lead to big trouble.
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby twister » Sun Nov 29, 2015 9:18 am

BoraxBill: I heard that the coach held a sleep-over in the gym for the boys on the team during Homecoming Week. That combined with what you call the "homoerotic elements" of the little video could certainly be the basis for rumors, not that I've heard any. The guy is married and some people will use that as a reason to reject rumors, but the truth is that most sexual assaults against children are committed by guys who are married. That sort of goes against the commonly held stereotype, but we all know that most stereotypes are pretty inaccurate. People just like scapegoats and so there's a tendency to pick on minorities, such as single men as a way to make us feel safer since we like to think that people like us don't do terrible things. All in all, the video is pretty funny, although unintentionally so.
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby shadylady » Mon Nov 30, 2015 9:12 am

twister: Upwards of ninety percent of molestations are committed by married men and that includes molestation of boys. So you're right about the disconnect between stereotypes and reality in this case. People have a tendency to jump to false conclusions a lot of the time. They let their imaginations run wild, but I see no more reason to conclude that the guy in the video is a pervert than I would to conclude that some guy who's never been married is a pervert. However, the public at large seems to harbor certain prejudices, which is why married guys get away with a lot, although I can think of a few cases here in town where married guys wound up being convicted of sex crimes against children and a few more where they were accused but never convicted, but we won't get into that. A couple cases involved messy divorces, BTW.
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby tronagirl » Tue Dec 01, 2015 9:17 am

twister and shadylady: In light of the Sandusky situation a couple years ago, this video does seem to have been a really bad idea. It might be going too far to call it homoerotic, but I see what you're saying. It's not much of a stretch to make an assertion like that, but obviously whoever made the video should have thought a little more carefully about how the school would like to be represented to the public. At the very least this is a case of questionable judgment, but with a little luck this won't become a major problem. As long as no parents complain anyways.
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby camel » Wed Dec 09, 2015 7:29 pm

Folsom High co-coach Troy Taylor diagrams a play in spread offense
Here we have a coach who knows and talks football. No religious bullshit. No cheap theatrics. No team group masturbatory sessions captured in video for all the world to see. Just pure, simple football. The kind of thing a guy who really knows the sport would do.
Would you walk a mile for me?
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Re: The Pit (Trona Football)

Postby dilbert » Thu Dec 10, 2015 8:49 am

camel: Coaches who really know what they're doing stay professional. There can be no doubt about that and they don't indulge in displays of religiosity or elaborate team cheers to get players pumped up for the game. Coaches who know what they're doing just execute the game plan and get the job done. Posers pray and waste time on fluff to trick the community into supporting their halfassed program.
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