I have been fired.
I am not surprised.
I made my choice to speak out. They made theirs.
My only regret is not being able to be there everyday to teach and encourage all of my athletes.
I have just one parting thought that came to me yesterday that helped clarify this situation and why I made the choice I did.
High school sports in their ideal should:
- instill a joy of physical activity
- show the value of hard work and a long-term view towards self improvement
- teach teamwork and cooperation
- help learn how to face both success and failure with dignity and grace
One of the fundamental parts of all of this is learning to play by the rules. The rules supposedly put in place in order to create a fair and level playing field, to let everyone know what is expected and allowed, and then to let the best man, woman, or team win.
Except now we are adding arbitrary, senseless, ill-thought rules.
I have had a few coaches thank me for speaking out - for saying what they would like to say. Some have even stated that they will be telling their athletes that there’s nothing that can be done if their masks happened to fall down or off at the start of the race. That is how many coaches are going to deal with these new mask rules - they are going to tell their athletes to ignore them, to cheat.
We now have some coaches telling athletes to play by some rules and ignore others.
Then we'll have other coaches who tell their athletes that the new mask rules suck but they’ll still need to play by those rules.
So now you’ve got an un-level playing field and blatant violation of rules.
And that leads to the real crime in this situation - an undermining one of the cornerstones of high school sports and the lessons we hope to teach these young adults.
I won’t be a part of that.
Sincerely,
Bradley Keyes
Former Head Coach of Pembroke Academy Track & Field
PS - I will not send out anymore unsolicited emails related to this topic. If anyone wishes to contact me you can reach me at:
bkeyes@activemind.com or 603-736-8877. Also, I’ll post any updates to
https://PATrackAndField.com. And if you’re interested in a private track and field club in New Hampshire keep an eye out for updates at
https://NHRockets.org. Best of luck to all.
