Interesting story about Calif. High School Division 1 State Hoops Championship this year.
SanctionII
Posts: 12,123 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
The California State High School basketball championship games are being played this weekend in Sacramento. Boys and Girls teams, in Divisions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 will be played.
Division 1 is for the biggest schools and Division 5 is for the smallest.
The Nor Cal Champions play the So Cal champions for the state championship. Last weekend games were played to determine the Nor Cal and So Cal champions.
In the Nor Cal Division One Championship McClymonds High School in Oakland (the alma mater of Bill Russell and other NBA greats) played Monte Vista High School in Danville.
Two completely different worlds are these two schools.
McClymonds is in the hood, is in the Oakland Public School District (one of the worst school districts in California, whose test scores are terrible, whose drop out rate in very high and whose students come from poor, minority and broken home backgrounds; and who is incapable or unwilling to be fiscally responsible [it "lost" $50,000,000.00 in funds and no one knows where it went because the financial records are so bad or even non existent]).
Monte Vista is in the burbs. In fact it is located in one of the most affluent parts of the SF Bay Area. The families living in this area are high end, high income, double income, highly educated, and very demanding on their kids. The kids are very status conscious and suffer from parental pressure, peer pressure and teacher pressure to get straight As in AP classes, while participating in extra curricular activities and while looking good doing so. Sports is a big time part of the school. Their sports teams are very good and they routinely send many of their athletes to Division 1 college programs. The parking lot of the school is filled with porsches etc., many of them new. Many of the students look like Barbie and Ken clones. Drugs, sex and parties are the norm.
Both schools have very good basketball teams, one primarily white and one exclusively black.
Last week McClymonds beat Monte Vista be 3 points to become Nor Cal. Champions.
A few days ago an article in the local paper was published. It stated that the coach for McClymonds had wanted to have his team travel by bus from Oakland to Sacramento on Friday (about 85 miles), spend the night in a hotel, have a shoot around on Friday at the arena, have team meals, play the game, spend Saturday night in a hotel and return to Oakland by bus on Sunday. However, he and his team can not do so since the school and the Oakland school district does not have the money to pay the for expenses. Thus the team would have to travel separately from Oakland to Sacramento on the day of the game (with parents paying the way), play the game and then drive back after the game. All other teams playing in the championship games would be staying in a hotel on Friday and Saturday. The McClymonds coach said he just wanted his team to have a basketball team road trip.
After the article was published, one of the parents of a Monte Vista student read it and decided to help. The parent sent an email to other Monte Vista parents asking for help in the form of monetary contributions. Money was raised immediately. The parent called the McClymonds coach and said that the Monte Vista parents had raised money to pay for the expenses of the McClymonds team to travel by bus and spend the night. The McClymonds coach was shocked and extremely grateful. Class act by the Monte Vista parents.
That is not the end of the story however. Once word of the help from the Monte Vista parents got out into the public, they were praised from multiple quarters. However, the Oakland School District did not approve. It has ordered the coach and the school to return the funds from the Monte Vista parents. It has done a 180 and has announced that (like magic) it has found Oakland School District funds that can be used to pay for the expenses of the McClymonds team.
It is great that McClymonds is going to be able to have a basketball road trip. However, it is distasteful in the extreme that it took publicity about donations from the parents of another team to get the Oakland School District to do the right thing. I suspect that the powers that be at the Oakland School District would not have "found" the money if it had not been for the donations from the Monte Vista parents and the publicity surrounding same.
Hopefully McClymonds will have a great road trip and come back to Oakland with a state championship trophy for the second straight year (they won it last year).
Division 1 is for the biggest schools and Division 5 is for the smallest.
The Nor Cal Champions play the So Cal champions for the state championship. Last weekend games were played to determine the Nor Cal and So Cal champions.
In the Nor Cal Division One Championship McClymonds High School in Oakland (the alma mater of Bill Russell and other NBA greats) played Monte Vista High School in Danville.
Two completely different worlds are these two schools.
McClymonds is in the hood, is in the Oakland Public School District (one of the worst school districts in California, whose test scores are terrible, whose drop out rate in very high and whose students come from poor, minority and broken home backgrounds; and who is incapable or unwilling to be fiscally responsible [it "lost" $50,000,000.00 in funds and no one knows where it went because the financial records are so bad or even non existent]).
Monte Vista is in the burbs. In fact it is located in one of the most affluent parts of the SF Bay Area. The families living in this area are high end, high income, double income, highly educated, and very demanding on their kids. The kids are very status conscious and suffer from parental pressure, peer pressure and teacher pressure to get straight As in AP classes, while participating in extra curricular activities and while looking good doing so. Sports is a big time part of the school. Their sports teams are very good and they routinely send many of their athletes to Division 1 college programs. The parking lot of the school is filled with porsches etc., many of them new. Many of the students look like Barbie and Ken clones. Drugs, sex and parties are the norm.
Both schools have very good basketball teams, one primarily white and one exclusively black.
Last week McClymonds beat Monte Vista be 3 points to become Nor Cal. Champions.
A few days ago an article in the local paper was published. It stated that the coach for McClymonds had wanted to have his team travel by bus from Oakland to Sacramento on Friday (about 85 miles), spend the night in a hotel, have a shoot around on Friday at the arena, have team meals, play the game, spend Saturday night in a hotel and return to Oakland by bus on Sunday. However, he and his team can not do so since the school and the Oakland school district does not have the money to pay the for expenses. Thus the team would have to travel separately from Oakland to Sacramento on the day of the game (with parents paying the way), play the game and then drive back after the game. All other teams playing in the championship games would be staying in a hotel on Friday and Saturday. The McClymonds coach said he just wanted his team to have a basketball team road trip.
After the article was published, one of the parents of a Monte Vista student read it and decided to help. The parent sent an email to other Monte Vista parents asking for help in the form of monetary contributions. Money was raised immediately. The parent called the McClymonds coach and said that the Monte Vista parents had raised money to pay for the expenses of the McClymonds team to travel by bus and spend the night. The McClymonds coach was shocked and extremely grateful. Class act by the Monte Vista parents.
That is not the end of the story however. Once word of the help from the Monte Vista parents got out into the public, they were praised from multiple quarters. However, the Oakland School District did not approve. It has ordered the coach and the school to return the funds from the Monte Vista parents. It has done a 180 and has announced that (like magic) it has found Oakland School District funds that can be used to pay for the expenses of the McClymonds team.
It is great that McClymonds is going to be able to have a basketball road trip. However, it is distasteful in the extreme that it took publicity about donations from the parents of another team to get the Oakland School District to do the right thing. I suspect that the powers that be at the Oakland School District would not have "found" the money if it had not been for the donations from the Monte Vista parents and the publicity surrounding same.
Hopefully McClymonds will have a great road trip and come back to Oakland with a state championship trophy for the second straight year (they won it last year).
0
Comments