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Mich. school practices 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.


I'm pretty sure it comes out the football budget.
 
MrVicchio said:
So how long till the ACLU sues the School on "Separation of Church and State" grounds?
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A lawsuit is unlikely. The coach is accommodating his players' needs, particularly their health. Why should he have to imperil their health or accept a weaker team when there is a way to avoid both of those bad situations?

It makes good sense to do what he is doing, even if it isn't required, just as it makes good sense for, let's say, a teacher or professor not to schedule exams on Yom Kippur (indeed, in many areas schools are closed on Yom Kippur). There is a difference between accommodating students' needs, even religious ones, and actually partaking in religious activity (disseminating religious materials beyond the extent that is required for learning purposes, holding worship sessions, etc.). The former is acceptable under settled law. The latter is not.
 

This isn't holding an official event based around religion. This is more like serving kosher food, or not planning school events on Sundays.

In other words, they're not celebrating Allah or being all Muslim, they're eating and drinking according to certain rules. Nobody's being excluded or pressured, they're just scheduling the event to permit the Muslims to participate.

It's either this or you loose football players, or you get football players passing out cold or worse because they're practicing without the benefit of food or drink.
 

And if one of the kids had died because of heat exhaustion? Let me guess.. another dead raghead, so who cares?
 
ludahai said:
And where to high school football budgets come from?
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Why the concern for electricity at night and not the cost of the football program?

Football could be played by community teams rather then high school teams, saving taxpayer money
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Why the concern for electricity at night and not the cost of the football program?

Football could be played by community teams rather then high school teams, saving taxpayer money
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Because I believe interscholastic athletics and other extracurricular activities are a very important part of the educational process...
 
ludahai said:
And where to high school football budgets come from?
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The taxpayers. But it's not like the taxpayers would be paying extra. It's coming out of the chunk set aside for the football program, and the coach, and the school get to decide on how to use that money for their football team.
 
Your Star said:
The taxpayers. But it's not like the taxpayers would be paying extra. It's coming out of the chunk set aside for the football program, and the coach, and the school get to decide on how to use that money for their football team.
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Actually, that differs from state to state, district to district and even depending on where the funds are from.

When I coached soccer, we had two sources of funds... one source was the school district while the other was the boosters. I don't know what the rules were for this school, but as a coach, I did not have the right to decide how all funds would be spend.

I had to create a budget for the program (pretty detailed too -- thank goodness I actually studied accounting at one point) for the school district funds, a budget that would have to be approved by the school and then the school board. There was little allowance for a major expense (like lights for hours at five practices each week for five hours) that was not budgeted.

The other source, I would have to ask the boosters and if they had the budget, they could decide to provide the funds or not. They funded the team meals on road trips, for example. We did have an issue with that... A couple of non-Catholic parents complained that on Friday matches during the season (it was Lent) we provided tuna sandwiches rather than other meat to meet Catholic requirements. As it was booster money, they allowed us to get Catholic friendly sandwiches, a decision that was supported by the principal (not that he had a say in the matter). However, had it been public school money, there could have been a problem.
 
Why not just hold this pre-season thing before/after Ramadan rather than overnighter sessions which are unsafe and actually go against good health/sports ability common sense?

I think that by being *so* flexible, here - they are setting their self up for misery when other religions start to come to being popular as our culture becomes more religiously diverse - and they'll find themselves unable to appease all.
 

The football season will begin before Ramadan ends. Most states (though I don't know about the one we are talking about here) have rules about when practice may occur. Coach-supervised practices are not permitted to begin before a date specified by the governing body for high schools sports in the state.
 
ludahai said:
Because I believe interscholastic athletics and other extracurricular activities are a very important part of the educational process...
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But having interscholastic activities that do not present a danger to the students, does not introduce religion to anyone, but accomodates the religious needs of a majority of students for a temporary period of time is not ok?
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
But having interscholastic activities that do not present a danger to the students, does not introduce religion to anyone, but accomodates the religious needs of a majority of students for a temporary period of time is not ok?
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not if it results in something as absurd as 11pm-4am football practices...
 
ludahai said:
not if it results in something as absurd as 11pm-4am football practices...
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It is not so absurb in this case now is it, as it is being done, and is serving the members of the football team well. Allowing the entire team to practice together to prepare fo the upcoming season

Something that would not be possible otherwise in this case
 

I don't know about you, but in August, I would rather be asleep in the wee hours of the morning... and who is paying the extra expense of the lights... those lights are very expensive to run for five hours a night...
 
ludahai said:
I don't know about you, but in August, I would rather be asleep in the wee hours of the morning... and who is paying the extra expense of the lights... those lights are very expensive to run for five hours a night...
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I would rather be asleep as well

But it appears being able to play football on a very competitive team is more important to the students then being asleep in the wee hours of the morning. It certainly appears that being able to win during the football season is important to the muslim and not muslim players

And having a football team is even more expensive then having lights on at night. Imagine the money spent on all the away game travel expenses, the equipment, the lights for regular games at night. The school system could save alot of money just shutting it down entirely
 
ludahai said:
I didn't play gridiron football... I played soccer and ran track...
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Ah, well then your expereinces with practices aren't even applicable here because they are from from entirely different sports which have different focuses in practice.

While I know strategy is a factor in soccer and track, it's not on the same level as it is with football where every play has assigned duties for every player on the field.

This adds a layer of importance to football practices not found in other sports because every single moment on the field involves a designed play that is meant to be executed in an exact fashion and in unison, where a single member of the team who is not on the same page as the rest will have disasterous effects for the play.

When I played football, if even a third of our team would have had to miss practice at a certain time or day, but they could all make it at another time or day, there would have been no hesitation at all to run the practices at a later time.

Nobody on my team would have wanted a bunch of people politicizing the choices made for team unity for the advancement of their own self-absorbed agendas.

The problem here is that when these kids can't practice, the entire team suffers. If it was a single player, that'd be one thing, but when a significant portion of the team wouldn't be able to practice, that's going to hurt the team as a whole. I'm not sure if that would happen in soccer or track, but I know it would happen with football.
 
ludahai said:
Coach-supervised practices are not permitted to begin before a date specified by the governing body for high schools sports in the state.
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That's why my team did midnight practices. So that we got our first practices in as soon as legally possible.
 

Strategy not much of a factor in track, except for individuals in middle and long distance races and working together is not required, but you are WAY OFF base regarding soccer.

In football, you have plays. The plays are called by the coach and everyone knows where everyone else is going to go based on how the play is drawn up.

However, unlike in gridiron football, where the kids play for seven seconds and play with themselves for 40 while the coach is communicating the next play in, real football plays with a running clock with only a break at halftime. There is very little coaching that goes on while the match is going on. Players have to know through practice and experience where their teammates are going to be in any given fluid situation because it can't be drawn on a playbook, like in gridiron football. I am not denigrating the importance of practice in gridiron, but your comments about real football are way off base...
 
ludahai said:
In football, you have plays. The plays are called by the coach and everyone knows where everyone else is going to go based on how the play is drawn up.
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Which is why there needs to be more practice in football. Each one of those plays needs to be practiced over and over again so that people learn how to adjust to what the defense is doing for each play.

The defense needs to learn how to adjust a called play when the offense is running or when it is passing, how to react to a playaction, how to read that it's playaction. Look for pulling linemen to read a sweep/end around. Where the receivers are likely to break, etc.

Then you have to practice what will be done when the opponent calls certain plays. How to read a defenseive package, how to read the offensive play as it's happening.

People who don't know anything about football think that just because the play is called and designed it always goes according to the "plan". The truth is, it very rarely goes as it was drawn up. It constantly requires on-field adjustments by the players. In essence, it's exactly the same as it is for soccer, but instead of a general sense of cohesion, it has to be done for every single play in the playbook.

The place where someone is supposed to be is dictated by what the other team does, and that isn't drawn up before hand. So all contingencies need to be practiced for so that player can recognize all of the permutations and know where they need to be in a given situation.

And that's for all three phases of the game. Offense, defense, and special teams where diferent players are present who have different tasks and in fact totally different goals, strategies and roles.

Soccer can switch from offense to defense and back again to offense in a total of 2 seconds.

However, unlike in gridiron football, where the kids play for seven seconds and play with themselves for 40 while the coach is communicating the next play in, real football plays with a running clock with only a break at halftime.
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That's precicley the reason why less practice is necessary for soccer.


And I'm not denigrating the importance of practice of soccer. I'mjust pointing out that there is more of a need for practice in football than there is in soccer.
 
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