Don't Blame Silliman For Rhode Island Highschool FB Team Forfeiture

Perhaps, I'm to blame.

You've read about the St. George's School football team in Middletown, Rhode Island forfeiting to Lawrence Academy in Massachusetts.

The reason given? The other team was too good "they're bigger than us!" 

Okay guys, I've got a guilty conscious. I have to confess something - they (St. George's) may have got the idea from me, Stan Silliman. 

If they did, I'm sorry. I know they're getting a lot of flak right now (you have no idea how much) but if my column, written years ago, on subversive cheerleaders, led these guys to give up... again, I'm sorry.

Let's back up, reassess the situation.

The schoolmaster at St. George's took a long, hard look at Lawrence Academy and, for the safety of their kids, announced they will not play. 

Lawrence Academy does have future college players, many of them. St. George's has none. Lawrence Academy has a QB (6'3- 220) going to Iowa. Lawrence Academy has a running back (6'3 - 220) going to North Carolina State. They have a wide receiver going to Iowa.

They have an offensive line that measures 6'5 - 360, 6'5 - 278, 6'6 - 235, 6'1 - 300, 6'4 - 340 with several going D-1. Both tight ends are 6'7. Here's a clue, they're bigger than most college teams. Their NC State bound running back is averaging 14.1 yards per carry. 

They are way too good of a team for their conference.

Still, probably not a good reason for St. George's to forfeit.

Here's what they been called: quitters, wussies, pussies, wimps, cheese bits, chickens, maggots, momma's boys, nancies, deserters, and I'm not even going to unprintable stuff.

Some say they should have played even if a few ended up in the hospital... or dead. It's the American way.

Sportswriters all over the country have cried and screamed about the wrong lessons, bad messages it sends, how these kids are ruined for life, how they're going to be living in their parents basements until they're fifty.

I don't think that's going to happen, but if it does I'll feel even worse about my "Subversive Cheerleader" column. 

To all the sports writers predicting our society will crumble and these prep school kids will be failures in life, I say put your money where your mouth is and do this: Pool your funds and pay for a sociologist and a psychologist to do a 20-year-study on the members of St. George's football team.

Study these guys, see if they've "learned" to be failures. Come back with the results in a generation or even in 10 years. Then compare them to society as a whole. Better yet, do a study on the players from Lawrence Academy. Do a 10-year, 20-year success rate turn-out and compare them to St. George's.

Okay. My subversive cheer leading column.

I wrote it when my daughter went out for cheer leading. She didn't make the squad. I asked if her school had a "subversive cheer squad" like my school. She asked "what" then I explained.

We devised a squad, very clever idea I thought, of cheer leaders who were willing to dress up as the opponents team cheer leaders, then come out and lead cheers designed to "take the crowd out of the game."

Devious, right? Clever, right? Downright dirty, you betcha!

It worked only at away games. Sometimes we'd have to bind and gag the "real" cheer leaders and drag them under the stadium, then come out and do these cheers:

"We want... we want...our money back."

"We're no good, we're no good... We don't play like we should!"

"Change our colors to yellow and pink... change our colors to yellow and pink

Cause frankly folks, we really stink."

"They're bigger than us. They're bigger than us. Do we have to play?"

That last cheer, in a column I wrote in 1988, that's the one I'm fearful might have made it's way into the hands of a Rhode Island school master. After all, I'm sure Silliman on Sports is read in Rhode Island, Why not? It's read in Pennsylvania, also New Jersey, why not Providence?

If so, guys, sorry for the confusion. It  was more about fooling a crowd than having your team quit. Bummer.