Tim Peterson
“SG’s Arthur Brown Signs with Dakota Wesleyan” read the headline on our website last Friday afternoon. It’s a headline that would seem to scream for congratulations, pats on the back and a celebration of the fruits and rewards of a four year high school football career.
Although there were several comments congratulating Brown – “I’m so proud of you. Good luck and God bless you,” wrote the Czarnicks, there were several others that weren’t so complimentary.
The only problem with the Czarnicks comment is that there weren’t nearly enough of them and I can’t figure out why.
A high school athlete can’t win these days, especially a high school athlete in the San Gabriel Valley. If he has a successful high school career, plays a few years, has some fun, and then graduates but decides his days on the football field are over he gets ripped.
He might go to college, get a degree and go on to a land a good paying job but the criticism still comes.
“Why didn’t he play anymore? The kid had no heart! He didn’t love it enough,” people say on blogs and in football circles. Why wasn’t playing high school football good enough for them? It was for the athlete and that’s all that should matter.
Then there is the other end of the spectrum. Another high school athlete will play football and again experience a certain amount of success and glory. Then he takes the walk in June and accepts a scholarship offer to play a sport that he loves (in this case football), but again it’s not to the satisfaction of some people.
He gets derided for not going to a better school, or hammered for taking what they consider a lesser offer. He hears derogatory things like “you won’t make it” or “you’re not good enough.” Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Take a look at some of the comments on Brown. One reader calling himself “Truth” was particularly brutal.
“He might as well go to a JC. Dakota is not a good football school,” he wrote.
That is wrong on a number of levels but I’ll only point out a couple. Good football school? I don’t have Dakota Wesleyan’s history in front of me. I don’t know what their record is in football over the last 10 years and I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.
They are offering a scholarship. They are going to let you attend their school and get a free education to do something that you love doing. I wouldn’t care if they won one game in the last five years. THEY ARE GIVING YOU A FREE EDUCATION! How is that a bad thing?
Attend a JC? If it doesn’t work out that’s always an option but why not jump at the chance to play football while getting an education paid for. A junior college is not going to offer you free tuition. You’ll be buying that.
Later “Truth” wrote “this is just another sorry attempt to give SG some pub.” And why not give San Gabriel some publicity? For preparing a young man for four years well enough to receive a football scholarship San Gabriel deserves all the publicity it receives.
It’s true San Gabriel has sent several players to Dakota Wesleyan as well as Dakota State. Not every player is going to USC or Florida so why not build a pipeline to the smaller schools? San Gabriel Coach Jude Oliva as well as previous Coach Keith Jones have done an outstanding job of doing just that.
Bonita’s Garrett Pendleton chose Cal Lutheran last week and apparently that didn’t set well with some folks as well. One comment said he received “bad, bad advice” for accepting an offer to Cal Lu. How is telling a player to accept a college scholarship to play football bad advice? Especially if no other solid offers had come in.
Here’s my advice. Congratulations Arthur and Garrett. We wish you all the best. It’s been a joy covering you the last four years.
That’s my principle.
Tim can be reached at tim@midvalleysports.com.
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