A thick but not uncomfortable haze hung in the air as the sun gradually set behind the tree-lined splendor that is Greenfield's Veterans Field. The Commerce and Greenfield high football teams were running through their warmups as the crowd began to file in, trailed by the faint smells of popcorn and hamburgers cooking at the concession stand across the way.
High school football was back, and as much as I had longed for this day to arrive, I found myself feeling strangely melancholy, because I couldn't help but think about how close we came to not seeing this game happen at all.
This past spring and summer, the town of Greenfield and its school committee engaged in one of the more brutal budget battles in recent memory. A $1.7 million gap existed between what the town said it could afford and what the schools said they absolutely needed to maintain services.
Rather than trying to find ways to cut the budget to bring it more in line with the town's bottom line, the school committee decided, to use a poker term, to go "all in." They announced that they would not make any cuts, and would instead ask the Greenfield Town Council to schedule a $1.7 million Proposition 2 ½ override to let the people decide if the schools should, or should not, get that money.
Not long after calling their shot, the committee rolled out a list of programs that would be cut if the override didn't pass. And, wouldn't you know it, at the top of the list were all extracurricular activities, including high school athletics.
It's a tactic that's been used before with a certain amount of success. Nobody blinks an eye when you talk about cutting teachers or administrators. But when people realize that there may not be a Turkey Day football game this year, all hell breaks loose, and sports enthusiasts begin storming the proverbial town hall Bastille looking for every penny they can find for education.
To those who don't understand sports, this concept is ludicrous. But I would submit to you that those same people will never truly be able to come to terms with how important high school athletics are to the identity of a school system and the larger community.
Sports, it has been said, is the one great unifier, and nowhere is this more evident locally than at high school sporting events. With all due respect to the education purists among us, athletics add a texture to the school environment that simply can't be found anywhere else.
Let's face it, you don't see a whole lot of marching bands and cheerleaders lining up outside MCAS exams. No one every held a pep rally before going into an AP English final. As important as academics are, they are nothing anyone is going to rally around, cheer and support. That's what sports are for.
There are also a lot of kids today who probably wouldn't be in school if sports weren't part of the equation. Again, this is an alien concept to the non-athlete, but there are actually kids who would probably drop out if they couldn't compete. That was certainly the truth back in my high school days, and I'm sure it's true today, although these days, students whose schools can athletics have the option of choicing out to somewhere else—creating yet another financial problem for districts already hurting for money.
But perhaps the most important thing athletics provides is a chance for students to learn some practical life lessons. Participating in sports provides an opportunity for kids to learn about the concepts of teamwork, sportsmanship, winning and losing, and, more importantly, how to do so gracefully.
In the end, the Greenfield School Committee abandoned the override effort, and managed to pass a budget that preserved all extra-curricular programs, including sports. And though Greenfield managed to dodge that bullet, there have been a number of school districts in the eastern part of the state that have not been so lucky, and have had to ditch their sports programs altogether.
I feel badly for those kids, their parents, and the communities who have been robbed of a significant aspect of the complete educational experience—one that can't be measured by how many students pass a standardized test.?
Chris Collins is the Director of News and Programming at WHMP Radio and a part-time political columnist and sports writer for the Greenfield Recorder.
