I believe it was soccer guru, Peter Kitsos , who was working the chains and said it, but I’ll stick by the term to describe Friday night’s Haverhill-Lawrence football clash.
Bizzaro.
Where do I start?
Lawrence absolutely obliterated the Hillies. If the Lancers played that inspired, they would have taken out Dracut Friday night.
First we’ll start with the ugliness that transpired in the week.
Some folks blame the LHS administrators for missing it.
Others rap the Hillies staff for waiting until the week of the Lawrence game to point out the problem.
What, they just realized a kid who had been in the headlines for the last two months, on Tuesday?
I choose to blame bureaucracy, red tape, paperwork.
As Hillie coach Tim Briggs called it, “rules.”
Briggs empathized, saying: “He’s a kid who’s trying to turn his life around. It comes down to a simple mistake. They probably would have been granted a waiver had they known the rules and applied. Mike Yameen does a super job against all odds down there, Timmy Finn is a good guy, and they both have a lot of integrity. And they’ve put together a good program. My hats off to them, his kids were prepared and they played their asses off.”
You know something, Briggs is right. If Lawrence applied, they would have gotten the waiver with ease. This is a no-brainer. The kid is 18. Sports are changing his life. Dropout to A student.
But because the forms weren’t sent in, the whole thing combusts.
Shame on this system. Govern with common sense, not rules just to have rules.
Enough on that.
There is no call for Lawrence’s third-quarter show of solidarity, with the team celebrating touchdown No. 6 of the night by dancing in the Haverhill end-zone, THE WHOLE TEAM. It was a dark moment on an otherwise stellar effort. Honestly, it lacked class.
Dropping that subject, we switch to the real story of the night … that is the hideous state of Haverhill Stadium.
If Ollie Longo was in high school and we were paying $350 to play football, I would expect a bit more from the city than 100 yards of horrendously lit, grassless mud with deplorable stands.
The parents should demand a refund. I would.
Aside from abandoning its youth and procuring doggie paths at Winnekinni, what is this administration doing to my city?
Haverhill Stadium, a showpiece 30 years ago, is now a dump. I take that back. The old Lawrence landfill, now the little league park visible from I-495 after the double-decker bridge, looks like Fenway compared to the Haverhill Stadium.
When do the city’s children get cut a break? Haverhill High is a logistical disaster, giving antiquated a complete meaning.
The real shame of this evening was the conditions the good kids in school, kids representing their cities and schools, were subjected to.
At least Lawrence can go home to Veterans Stadium, bright, shiny and new.
Haverhill is stuck, in the mudpit, indefinitely.
Fix a lightbulb fellas with something more than your average 40 watt appliance bulb.
Lawrence built a sparkling new high school. So did North Andover. Methuen’s got a major deal in the works. Andover’s totally redone.
And here’s Haverhill, a relic that’s falling apart, tossing a coat of paint on a monstrocity and calling it renovations.
There are better paved parking lots in downtown Baghdad than at the high school or the stadium.
Shame on the adults in Haverhill, who are too busy forming factions and cliques, to worry about the kids, who are absolutely getting jobbed.
If the teenagers sued this city for non-support, there isn’t a judge on the planet, who wouldn’t find Haverhill guilty?
The kids don’t matter in Haverhill to anyone. The city, the mayor, the rest of the politicians, nobody cares about the kids.
Haverhill High, the facilities not the people, are a disaster. $350 to play football, and they can’t even light the darn field right. A little grass, man that would be too much to ask.
The city and its stadium are laughing stocks. The kids get hosed. And property taxes go up higher and higher.
I’m embarrassed for us all.
